Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — ENERGY

Conservation

Mr. Rost: asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will make a statement on the Government's energy conservation programme, specifying long-term targets and objectives.

Mr. Lane: asked the Secretary of State for Energy what progress has been made in the energy-saving campaign; and what further steps he is taking.

Mr. Cryer: asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he is satisfied with the success of the energy-saving campaign; and if he will make a statement.

The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Alex Eadie): There is evidence that substantial savings are being made in many areas, and that progress is being made in changing attitudes towards the use of energy. There is, however, a great deal more that consumers can economically do to save energy, and the objective of the Government's ongoing energy conservation campaign is to seek to realise these savings.

Mr. Rost: I acknowledge that the limited success of the advertising campaign is already wearing off, but is not it really time that the Government put forward their longer-term strategy for energy conservation, setting out specific targets? In particular, would not it make better sense, instead of spending vast sums of taxpayers' money on nationalising the oil interests in the North Sea, to reallocate some of those funds to productive energy conservation measures?

Mr. Eadie: The hon. Gentleman made a very constructive contribution in a debate in this House on energy conservation. I rather regret that he is not so constructive in his questioning, when he brings in other matters in relation to energy conservation. I refute his suggestion that the energy conservation campaign is starting to lose steam and that there are no results from it. There are many individual case histories showing that industrial firms, local authorities, and so on, are taking energy savings very seriously and are achieving good results.
As to the long-term position, my right hon. Friend will look forward to receiving recommendations shortly from the Conservation Advisory Council, and I know that he is awaiting with interest the report of the Select Committee on Science and Technology, of which the hon. Gentleman is well aware.

Mr. Lane: As definite targets are always the most effective way of achieving savings, will the Minister tell us what specific targets he has set, first for central Government and, secondly, for local government? If he has not set definite targets, is not it time that he did?

Mr. Eadie: Those questions have already been answered in the House, but, if I may refresh the hon. Gentleman's memory, we have said that if a 10 per cent. saving were achieved, it would amount to about £700 million. We have also said that in the long term about £10 million is being spent by Government Departments and the nationalised industries on energy saving research. Details are contained in recent evidence to the Select Committee on Science and Technology.

Mr. Ward: In view of the enormous saving of energy equivalent which would come from the greater use of diesel engines, will my hon. Friend indicate whether he is trying to speed up the discussions with the automotive industry, on which he has been engaged for some time, so that those who have to make investment decisions about diesel engine production can get on with that job?

Mr. Eadie: From time to time we have said that we are not proud concerning help on any energy conservation measures, but, dealing with my hon. Friend's question, we shall await the result of any


representation with a great deal of interest.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Is the Under-Secretary of State aware that home insulation is one of the most effective ways of saving energy? Is he further aware that his Department's efforts to promote home insultation are being frustrated by an obstructive attitude on the part of the Department of the Environment? Will he try to sort that out, bearing in mind that the cavity wall insulation industry is now running at about 30 per cent. of its maximum capacity?

Mr. Eadie: The right hon. Gentleman put two questions. First, as to the Government's trying to frustrate any insulation measures, I am afraid that this is not borne out by the facts. I am advised by the industry concerned with insulation that it is overburdened with orders.
As for cavity wall insulation, the right hon. Gentleman is aware that we have been advising that this is work for experts. It is, of course, the most costly of all measures of insulation but we have pointed out to people concerned that in 10 years' time they can have a return for any investment they make in this respect.

North Sea Oil and Gas

Mr. Skeet: asked the Secretary of State for Energy at what rate Her Majesty's Government proposes to deplete the resources of the North Sea.

The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. John Smith): The rate of depletion for both oil and gas will be such as to secure the greatest benefit to Britain's economy. The primary aim for oil is to eliminate net imports as quickly as possible.

Mr. Skeet: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that his answer says nothing? Does he agree with the previous Secretary of State, who told a meeting of mineworkers in November last year that it carried with it the guarantee of room in the market for competitive coal? Does he intend so to manipulate his depletion policy for oil as to suit the nation or the mineworkers?

Mr. Smith: Our depletion policy for oil will be geared to a proper and sensible use of a finite resource. This Government inherited no depletion controls

whatever. In the Petroleum and Submarine Pipe-lines Bill we are seeking authority from Parliament to have depletion controls. It is necessary to have depletion controls if we are to have a depletion policy. The hon. Gentleman's Government had neither.

Mr. Donald Stewart: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that there should be other considerations in the rate of extraction than getting money to set against the British balance of payments? What consideration will his Ministry give to the suggestion of the Shah of Persia that this resource should no longer be used for heating purposes?

Mr. Smith: The objective of our depletion policy strategy will take into account not only the economic needs of the country in imports but also the best long-term use of a finite resource. In the short term it makes sense to eliminate the requirement to import oil. I understand that the Scottish National Party wishes to drop it even further—to 50 million tons a year. It has no sense of responsibility towards the construction industry in Scotland, which would be desolated if that policy were carried out.

Mr. Alexander Fletcher: asked the Secretary of State for Energy what plans he has for discussions on North Sea oil production with his EEC counterparts.

The Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn): Production from the United Kingdom North Sea is a matter for the Government, but I shall obviously be keeping my European colleagues informed of the Government's plans for reducing dependence en imported oil.

Mr. Fletcher: When the right hon. Gentleman has further discussions with his counterparts in the EEC, will he take the opportunity to give them the answer I would like him to give us today to a question which he himself put at a Tribune Group rally in Glasgow on 13th April, when he asked whether the Commission would assume control of the rate of depletion of North Sea oil and gas, whether the Treaty of Rome would be applied to the Continental Shelf, and, if so, precisely what powers would this give to the Commission?

Mr. Benn: The House will have noticed that when I attended the Energy Council meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday I made it clear that I interpreted my function as being constructive as a member of the council, but defending our national interest. I believe that to be correct. We are by far the richest energy source among the nine countries in the Community, in terms not only of oil but of coal, and I would expect, therefore, to consider any proposals that might have an impact upon our power to control our own resources, with a view to seeing that our national interest is safeguarded.

Mrs. Bain: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain in detail the implications of the draft European energy directive, particularly in view of the rate of exploitation of Scotland's major resource, oil? Is he aware that the directive speaks in terms of 180 million tons per annum and the Government of 110 million tons per annum, while we in the Scottish National Party want to see 50 million tons per annum and a reduced rate of exploitation? Is he further aware that the rate of exploitation proposed is totally unacceptable to the people of Scotland, who are seeing their birthright sold out by a British Government who have no concern for them?

Mr. Benn: The hon. Lady has raised a number of questions—one in particular that was not on the Order Paper. I say this in reply—and I think I will carry her assent: the issues involved in any energy policy formulation, either here or in the Community, are of such importance and are usually so complex that there is a great deal to be said in favour of maximum openness, so that everyone is able to know what is proposed before decisions of any kind are reached.

Mr. Edwin Wainwright: Has my right hon. Friend any information about the costs of North Sea oil when it is delivered into Great Britain? If he has any assessment of the cost, will he say how they compare with the costs of the oil that we import from the Middle East? What effect does he think British oil will have on the European economy?

Mr. Benn: My hon. Friend will appreciate that relative costs depend on a number of factors, which it is not always

easy to forecast. It depends upon the oil price from the OPEC countries and the experience we have or acquire about the cost of getting the oil out of the North Sea. However, I shall ensure that my hon. Friend is kept as fully informed as possible. Such figures as are available were published in the Brown Book.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: With reference to a question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North (Mr. Fletcher) does the Secretary of State now concede that he was quite wrong about the question of EEC control over the rate of depletion and his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and the rest of us were right?

Mr. Benn: I do not think it would be sensible to reopen the referendum argument. Moreover, the House would be very foolish if it supposed that our interests in North Sea oil were automatically safeguarded and did not require the vigilance of British Ministers of whatever party was in power.

Mr. Gow: asked the Secretary of State for Energy what is his latest estimate of the amount of oil which the United Kingdom will obtain from the North Sea over the next five years; and what is the estimated cost of that oil, as compared with the cost of oil imported from overseas.

Mr. John Smith: Between now and the end of 1980 we expect total oil production from the United Kingdom Continental Shelf to amount to between 300 million and 350 million tons. Using the latest valuation for similar oil currently imported, the cost at current prices in national resources of importing this quantity would be between £l1 billion and £14 billion (thousand million). On the same basis, the cost of production could be in the region of half the import cost, though, because a large share of this will be in respect of domestic resources, the benefit to the balance of payments will be very much larger than half the import cost.

Mr. Gow: Does the Minister agree that the country needs a timely reminder that the supply of oil from the North Sea will not provide an automatic bonanza for the British people?

Mr. Smith: I think that my Government colleagues and I, and many other hon. Members, are acutely aware and constantly remind the public of that fact. On the other hand, we cannot underestimate the importance of North Sea oil. It will be one of the features which will put this country in a position of energy self-sufficiency in the 1980s, and in that respect we shall be unique in Western Europe.

Pneumoconiosis (Compensation)

Mr. David Watkins: asked the Secretary of State for Energy what is the total amount awarded under the recent legislation and to how many persons, to the latest available date, in respect of the deaths of miners who suffered pneumoconiosis.

Mr. Eadie: The pneumoconiosis compensation scheme is not a statutory scheme but was agreed between the National Coal Board and the mining unions. To date the National Coal Board has made offers of payment totalling £108·4 million in 46,760 cases, and of this about £13 million, in about 14,000 cases, was to widows, dependants or the estates of men who have died.
The Coal Industry Bill provides for a Government contribution of up to £100 million to the cost of the scheme, and to date £90 million has been paid.

Mr. Watkins: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for that detailed answer. In view of what he said and in the light of claims received and under consideration, does he feel that the grant of £100 million referred to in the most recent Coal Industry Act is sufficient, since concern was expressed on both sides of the House that it might not be?

Mr. Eadie: As my hon. Friend knows, this matter was aired fairly extensively on the Floor of the House during the passage of the Coal Industry Bill. However, if my hon. Friend cares to look at the Coal Industry Examination Report, he will see that the Government have honoured their commitment to provide £100 million towards such a scheme. I emphasise that this is not a Government scheme; it is a scheme drawn up between the unions and the National Coal Board.

Mr. Alexander Wilson: Does my hon. Friend accept that this scheme was conceived too hurriedly? Although we congatulate the Labour Government on their grant of £100 million, do they not realise that £100 million is not nearly sufficient to cover existing cases? Will my hon. Friend now reconsider the position in relation to commuted cases and give something extra to the widows involved—preand post-1970?

Mr. Eadie: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing attention to the fact that this was a unique scheme in the business of the House of Commons and contributed substantially to those suffering from pneumoconiosis. I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree, however, that when we discussed this matter on the Floor of the House, there was no lack of sympathy or concern on the part of the Government, although we had to point out that £100 million was the grant made by the Government for the scheme, that the scheme was one drawn up between the unions and the National Coal Board, and that any alteration to the scheme would require to be negotiated between the parties to it.

Mr. Woodall: Does my hon. Friend agree that this scheme has been widely accepted and welcomed by the entire mining industry? Will he consider making representations to his right hon. Friend that some suggestion might be made to both sides of the industry for a slight increase in the price of a ton of coal to all consumers, in order to remedy the shortfall now envisaged and also to take account of the commuted cases?

Mr. Eadie: I am sure that the whole House will have listened to the point by my hon. Friend, in view of his background knowledge of the mining industry. He was right to say that the scheme had received a universal welcome by all those engaged in the mining industry. I can only tell him that since we debated this matter at length his point and those made by other hon. Members will be noted by all those concerned with any increase in or amendment to the scheme.

Coal Mining (Vacancies)

Mr. Gwilym Roberts: asked the Secretary of State for Energy what is his estimate of the number of jobs that will


be available in the coal-mining industry by the years 1980 and 1985; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Benn: The precise manpower needed will depend on the industry's competitive ability to take advantage of the market opportunities for coal and on realising the necessary advances in productivity. Forward plans are discussed between the National Coal Board and the unions concerned.

Mr. Roberts: In congratulating my right hon. Friend on his new role, may I thank him for the projection that he gave us? However, in areas like the Cannock Chase, where we have very high levels of unemployment, will he consider bringing forward some of the proposed developments in deep mining in order to provide more jobs in the area?

Mr. Benn: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I shall consider the point that he raised, though I am not familiar enough with the discussions which have taken place to know whether the local impact of unemployment has hitherto been a factor in deciding the development work in new mines.

Mr. Patrick McNair-Wilson: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the future of the industry will depend on its ability to compete with other fuels, but does he not agree that there is serious concern about the effectiveness of the incentive scheme, which was tailored to meet the demands of the militants and which is clearly not working, and is leading to a fall in production?

Mr. Benn: I have taken the opportunity to have preliminary discussions with the National Coal Board and the unions. Without wishing to give offence, I should not regard the Conservative Party as the best adviser on the handling of the problems of the coal industry.

Mr. Roderick: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the difficulties associated with the building of the Aberthaw power station and the consequent stocking of coal produced by 10 pits in South Wales? I understand that Didcot imports coal. Cannot my right hon. Friend arrange for some of this coal to be transferred from South Wales pits, otherwise stocks will grow to such an extent that pits will have to stop production?

Mr. Benn: I am aware of this point. It was raised with me by the Chairman of the National Coal Board and by the National Union of Mineworkers. I also took the opportunity to discuss it with the Chairman of the Central Electricity Generating Board. My hon. Friend knows the reason for it. It is a problem with the 500 MW sets. But I shall look into his suggestion.

Central Electricity Generating Board

Mrs. Knight: asked the Secretary of State for Energy what was the total expenditure in the past financial year by the CEGB on alterations to office accommodation.

Mr. Eadie: This is a matter for the board, and I am asking the chairman to write to the hon. Member.

Mrs. Knight: Can the hon. Gentleman confirm that improvements to the London Electricity Board's offices are currently being undertaken at a cost of about £1 million? Is he aware that one executive's office alone is reported already to have cost more than £10,000? Is it too much to ask the Minister to tell the electricity boards that Britain faces a very severe financial crisis and that the office party is over—indeed, that it should not have begun at this time?

Mr. Eadie: I have no knowledge of the information that the hon. Lady gave. However, if she reflects, she will remember that I said that I would like the Chairman of the CEGB to write to her. I am a little confused, however, because her Question was directed specifically to the CEGB, and then she referred to an electricity board.

Mr. Palmer: Is not my hon. Friend aware that the CEGB has no responsibility for the London Electricity Board? Secondly, surely the question of the health and welfare of the staff employed in offices enters into these matters.

Mr. Eadie: My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Palmer) has a knowledge of these matters which is perhaps superior to that of anyone else in the House, and I am grateful for his confirmation of the point I made arising out of the fact that the hon. Lady put down a Question about the CEGB and in her supplementary question referred


to electricity boards. I do not know which of us is confused.

Mr. Wigley: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in Wales, where a considerable volume of electricity is produced, there are very few Central Electricity Generating Board jobs of the organisational kind? Will the Government give consideration to setting up a body in Wales analogous to the South of Scotland Electricity Board so that we can get more organisational jobs in Wales?

Mr. Eadie: Day-to-day administration is the responsibility of the CEGB. If the hon. Gentleman has any specific points to raise, I shall pass them to the board, which may be able to give him the assurances he seeks.

Nuclear Fuels

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: asked the Secretary of State for Energy whether he is satisfied that the United Kingdom's long-term supplies of nuclear fuels can be guaranteed, in the light of the implications for such supplies of the political situation in southern Africa.

Mr. Tim Renton: asked the Secretary of State for Energy whether he is satisfied that Great Britain's future supplies of uranium are secure.

Mr. Eadie: Our nuclear fuel requirements are covered until the early 1980s by existing contracts. British Nuclear Fuels Limited, as agents for the electricity generating boards, is seeking opportunities for further contracts throughout the world to meet requirements beyond this date. We have no reason to think that contracts for supply from southern Africa will not be met.

Mr. Bennett: Is my hon. Friend not aware that 40 per cent. of our contracts are with the South African Government for supply from Namibia, and that the people of Namibia are unhappy about it?

Mr. Eadie: If my hon. Friend is raising the question of the politics of the area, he will have to address his remarks to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. Irrespective of what administration is in being in Namibia, there is certainly a desire and willingness on the part of its Government to sell uranium to other nations.

Mr. Renton: Australia is also looking very carefully at her export contracts for uranium. In view of the pressing need for self-sufficiency in energy supplies, has the Department developed a long-term model showing the different sources and different costs of energy over the next generation, in order that we can achieve self-sufficiency?

Mr. Eadie: That is a pertinent question. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the matter has had consideration. He has heard me say many times that the nuclear power industry is not indigenous. We have to import uranium in order to sustain the industry. This is why the fast breeder reactor at Dounreay is significant for Britain, in the sense that we are world leaders in such technology. This is related to ensuring that in the long term we shall have a sufficiency of uranium to sustain our nuclear power industry.

Dr. Miller: Keeping in mind that the Dounreay reactor is merely a prototype, will my hon. Friend indicate what progress has been made towards a large-scale commercial fast breeder which is also safe?

Mr. Eadie: My hon. Friend is correct in stating that the Dounreay reactor is a prototype. Although we are world leaders in this technology, we are some years away from being able to say that we shall have a commercial breeder reactor, precisely for the reason my hon. Friend mentioned. Safety considerations must come into the matter before we can consider the whole question of a commercial reactor.

Mr. Skeet: The hon. Gentleman referred to the fast breeder. What contracts are available for the supply of thorium to the United Kingdom? Is the hon. Gentleman prepared to recommend to the Secretary of State that the British National Oil Corporation, like the oil companies, should search abroad for nuclear fuel?

Mr. Eadie: No, Sir.

Petrol

Mr. Ridley: asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will give the figures for petrol consumption for the first quarter of 1973, 1974 and 1975, respectively, in the United Kingdom.

Mr. John Smith: Deliveries into consumption of motor spirit in these periods were respectively 3·85, 3·57 and 3·55 million tons.

Mr. Ridley: Do not these figures show that petrol is really no longer to be regarded as a luxury but as an essential? In view of the great hardship that the Government's swingeing tax increases on petrol have caused to many people, particularly those living in the country and relying on the car, will the hon. Gentleman switch the basis of taxation from petrol spirit to crude oil, which would provide a much more equitable basis?

Mr. Smith: The hon. Gentleman has canvassed this possibility before. Petrol spirit makes up a large part of the consumption of oil in this country. The policy seems to be working, to the extent that consumption is down significantly —8 per cent. as compared with the same period of 1973, against a background of a constant annual increase of 5 per cent. before that. The hon. Gentleman must bear in mind that if the tax burden is shifted it will fall on other shoulders. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman wants to increase the cost of central heating fuels, for example. If so, he should say so clearly.

Mr. Kelley: Will my hon. Friend advise the Secretary of State to get rid of the nonsense announced by his predecessor about speed limits? The lower the speed limit, the less the consumption of petrol. I find on my journeys to this House that large, mainly foreign, cars are travelling at 100 mph on motorways and dual carriageways when the limit should be 70 and 60 mph, respectively. Will my hon. Friend put the thing right and get rid of that nonsense?

Mr. Smith: My hon. Friend is asking me to give a reply on a matter on which information is not yet complete. We do not know what effects the changed speed limits have had on the consumption of petrol. It is already complicated by the fact that other factors, such as price, are affecting consumption. But the matter will be kept under review. The speed limits are due for review on 30th November, and in the light of the information we shall be reviewing the policy before then.

Nationalised Industries (Chairmen)

Mr. Ashley: asked the Secretary of State for Energy when he next proposes to meet the chairmen of the nationalised industries within his responsibility.

Mr. Rooker: asked the Secretary of State for Energy when he next expects to meet the chairmen of the gas and electricity industries.

Mr. Benn: I plan to have regular meetings with the chairmen both collectively and individually. I met the Chairman of the National Coal Board on 17th June, the Chairman of the British Gas Corporation on 19th June, and the Chairman of the Central Electricity Generating Board on 24th June, and I expect to be meeting the Chairman of the Electricity Council very soon.

Mr. Ashley: That very impressive list shows that my right hon. Friend is working even harder than usual. When he meets the Chairman of the National Coal Board will he emphasise the anomalies in the compensation scheme for pneumoconiosis—which has already been referred to by some of my hon. Friends—so far as they affect widows? If the chairman of the coal board is in any doubt about the way in which the scheme discriminates against widows, will my right hon. Friend tell him about a constituent of mine whose 56-year-old husband died before 1970, from 100 per cent. pneumoconiosis, and received the miserly sum of £300? Will my right hon. Friend see what he can do about that dreadful anomaly?

Mr. Benn: My hon. Friend may have heard an answer that was given earlier today, namely, that this matter has been raised with us on a number of occasions. It was raised by the National Union of Mineworkers when its representatives came to see me. I put it to the union, during the discussions, that these and other matters might best be handled in a resumed tripartite discussion, although in saying so I was unable to go beyond the £100 million arrangement reached when the last tripartite discussions were completed last year. However, I am aware of the anomalies of the kind that my hon. Friend mentioned.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Will the right hon. Gentleman also consider meeting the chairmen of the water authorities and exhorting them, when planning new reservoirs, to conserve energy by selecting sites where the natural head of water will feed the system rather than low-lying sites which have to use fuel for pumping?

Mr. Benn: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is making a good point, but before I undertake those onerous duties, which may not even fall within my departmental responsibilities. I should like to give further consideration to what he suggested.

Mr. Rooker: When my right hon. Friend next meets the Chairman of th., Electricity Council, which he said he will do shortly, will he draw his attention to and reinforce the fact that about 40,000 families will be without an electricity supply tonight? Will he ask the Electricity Council if it will take some action at least in the spirit of the Ten-Minute Bill that I introduced some months ago?

Mr. Benn: When I meet the Chairman of the Electricity Council I undertake to brief myself on the point made by my hon. Friend and shall ensure that the matter comes up in the discussions I have with him.

Mr. Lane: In view of the anxiety caused by the disastrous relationship between the former Secretary of State for Industry and the British Steel Corporation, will the right hon. Gentleman now assure us and the nationalised industries that, so far as his new responsibilities are concerned, his policy will be to allow them maximum commercial managerial freedom with a minimum of day-to-day ministerial intervention?

Mr. Benn: I very much hope to enjoy the same relations of cordiality and trust that I sought to establish between those who work in the nationalised industries for which I was responsible. Moreover, I hope that in my relations with the chairmen of the nationalised industries, the need to maintain a good working relationship with the people who work in the industry will be widely shared and accepted.

Mr. Golding: asked the Secretary of State for Energy how many general

directions to chairmen of nationalised industries he issued in the last week.

Mr. Benn: None, Sir.

Mr. Golding: Is my right hon. Friend aware that he has the fullest confidence of all those who work in the Post Office? Is he further aware that those of us with interests in the energy industries will be looking to him to ensure that management gives workers a rightful say in the running of those industries?

Mr. Benn: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his remarks. Without in any way interfering with the day-to-day management of the industries concerned, one of the greatest development roles to be performed is that of moving towards greater self-management. I hope to encourage that by discussions with the unions in the energy industries, as I did when I was at the Department of Industry.

Mr. Mike Thomas: Is my right hon. Friend aware that another and larger group concerned with the energy industries consists of the consumers? In his relationships with the chairmen of these industries, will he take the view that it is not proper and, indeed, not seemly for him to be seen going along with his Department's line of bleating lamely about commercial freedom and tugging at the skirts of the industries when a case is now being overwhelmingly made for the provision of an adequate level of energy to all homes being regarded as a social and public good and not as a matter of commercial freedom, dictated solely by commercial considerations?

Mr. Benn: Yes, but I did not say that, as my hon. Friend will see when he reads Hansard. I said:
Without in any way interfering with the day-to-day management".
I am well aware of the points made by my hon. Friend in his supplementary question, but he will know that, quite properly, consumer interest in the nationalised industries has been transferred to a wholly different Department—the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection —so that it can be seen to be quite independent of the sponsoring Department.

Electricity Generation

Mr. Canavan: asked the Secretary of State for Energy what is the average unit cost of electricity generated by oil-fired, coal-fired, hydro-electric and nuclear power stations, respectively.

Mr. Eadie: I understand from the Central Electricity Generating Board that for 1974–75 the average generation costs of Central Electricity Generating Board power stations commissioned in the last 12 years were as follows:
0·74p per kilowatt-hour at coal-fired stations,
0·88p per kilowatt-hour at oil-fired stations,
0·48p per kilowatt-hour at nuclear stations.
These figures include interest and depreciation charges appropriate to 1974–75. The hydro-electric capacity of the CEGB is too small to provide a meaningful figure. The corresponding figures for the Scottish boards, which include a significant amount of hydro-electric generation, are a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland.

Mr. Canavan: Will my hon. Friend give an assurance to the coal miners of this country—particularly the miners of Stir! ingshire, who work on the Long Gannet project—that coal will be required as a fuel for generating electricity and for other purposes for many years to come, even after we become self-sufficient in oil, and even taking into account the planned development of nuclear power stations?

Mr. Eadie: Such an assurance was presented to the House in the coal industry examination. I certainly advise my hon. Friend to recommend it to any of his constituents who are in any doubt about the future role that coal will play in energy provision in this country.

Mr. Aitken: When answering an earlier Question on the Order Paper the Secretary of State spoke of the need for maximum openness in energy matters. On the question of costs will the Minister consider changing the practice whereby his Department refuses to answer parliamentary Questions requesting details of the uranium prices in Government contracts?

Mr. Eadie: I understand the question that has been put by the hon. Gentleman, but there is a certain amount of con-

fusion in it, because this is a commercial matter. Indeed, one of his hon. Friends recently spoke about letting industry get on with its job without governmental interference. There is confusion on both sides of the House as to what is a commercial matter.

Dr. Bray: Will my hon. Friend confirm that the figure for nuclear power stations was 0·48p, which is markedly below that for oil-fired and gas-fired stations? Will he state whether that takes account of any revaluation of the assets of nuclear stations compared with coal-fired or oil-fired stations? Finally, is he able to give any more up-to-date figures in view of the changed pattern of both capital and operating costs in the current year?

Mr. Eadie: My hon. Friend has raised an issue about which there has been great controversy in this House over the last 10 years or so, to my knowledge. The figures that I gave were supplied by the CEGB. Matters about depreciation, costs, and so on are still controversial. However, I have given the best known figures available. No doubt my hon. Friend will want to study the reply that I have given, which is based on information from the CEGB.

British Petroleum

Mr. Ovenden: asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he has yet made a decision concerning the acquisition of the British Petroleum shares at present held by the Bank of England.

Mr. David Price: asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will now make a statement on the Government's policy with respect to the public sector's recently acquired 70 per cent. stake in British Petroleum.

Mr. Benn: As my right hon. Friend told my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Mr. Ovenden) on 24th February, the question of the BP shareholding is still under consideration. In reaching our decision we shall need to take full account of the national interest.

Mr. Ovenden: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that British Petroleum has effectively been in public ownership for over six months and that the Government have been prevented from exercising


any control over that company because of the division of ownership between the Government and the Bank of England? Before the Bank of England is permitted to dispose of the former Burmah shares on the open market, will my right hon. Friend consider the desirability of taking British Petroleum into public ownership, as the basis for the British National Oil Corporation, rather than expecting the BNOC to operate in complete isolation from the rest of the oil industry?

Mr. Benn: Without prejudice to the latter question, which is on a quite different matter, I can assure my hon. Friend that the decision about these shares will be a Government decision and that it will not be taken without regard to our national interest, as best we can identify it.

Mr. Rost: What benefit does the Secretary of State expect to reap if he decides to take the Burmah holding on behalf of the Government?

Mr. Benn: That is a much wider question. Clearly, the Government's holding in BP, which goes back over many years, provides for the nation an important holding in an important industry which is becoming even more important as time goes by. I could not debate such a very wide matter of long established public policy in answer to a supplementary question.

Mr. Hardy: Will my right hon. Friend take into account the fact that, bearing in mind all the implications of the international role of that company, it may be useful for it to demonstrate that it possesses a real measure of independence?

Mr. Benn: I recognise that fact. That was made clear in the original exchange of letters between the Treasury and the company at the time that the Government's holding was first acquired.

Oral Answers to Questions — OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

European Community (Development Ministers)

Mr. Blaker: asked the Minister of Overseas Development if he will make a statement about the latest meeting between development Ministers of the EEC.

Mr. Jessel: asked the Minister of Overseas Development if he will make a statement about the latest meeting between development Ministers of the EEC.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Overseas Development (Mr. John Grant): My right hon. Friend is pressing for the next meeting to take place on the earliest possible date.

Mr. Blaker: Will the Parliamentary Secretary tell us when the development Ministers last met? If I am right in thinking that they have not met for three months, is that not rather regrettable, bearing in mind that they have before them some important proposals for improving the balance of Community aid in favour of the Commonwealth countries of South Asia—a matter which was agreed in principle as long ago as December 1972? Will the hon. Gentleman see that an early meeting takes place?

Mr. Grant: I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. The last meeting of the development Ministers was in January. We are pressing for a meeting this month. With the changeover in the presidency of the Community from Ireland to Italy on 1st July, I do not think that it will be possible to have a meeting before the Heads of Government meeting on 15th July. However, we are pressing for it as early as possible.

Mr. Dalyell: Is the question of Community aid to Mozambique on the agenda?

Mr. Grant: Because Mozambique is not yet a member of the Lomé Convention—although I think it likely that it will become a member—it is not, as I understand it, on the agenda.

Mr. Jessel: Will the Minister ask the European Economic Community to extend the provisions of the Lomé Convention to cover developing countries of the Commonwealth in Asia? Will he also tell us why Asian countries of the Commonwealth are discriminated against in favour of African, Caribbean and Pacific developing countries, so that very often some of the poorest countries in the world have their traditional exports to Europe jeopardised? What action will


the Government take to put right that injustice?

Mr. Grant: It is Government policy, and has been for some time, to press for aid to the non-associates to be conceded by the Community. In Rome last week I was somewhat critical of the action taken by the Council of Ministers in not supporting the Commission's proposals on increasing food aid, most of which would undoubtedly have gone to the countries that the hon. Gentleman has in mind.

Mr. Spearing: My hon. Friend may have noticed that in last Thursday's Written Answers, in col. 188. the Prime Minister appointed the Foreign Secretary as notional Minister for Overseas Development. Will he now assure the House that when the development Ministers of the EEC meet it will be the Minister for Overseas Development, namely, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Prentice) or the Parliamentary Secretary himself who will attend, and not my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan)?

Mr. Grant: I can certainly give that assurance. Perhaps I may add that my right hon. Friend apologises to the House for not being here today, but he is attending an important meeting of the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD in Paris. That is the reason for his absence. [Interruption.] It is a terribly important meeting. I hope that the House will understand that there is no question of my right hon. Friend's being a notional Minister for anything.

Sri Lanka

Mr. Canavan: asked the Minister of Overseas Development if he will take steps to increase the amount of aid given to Sri Lanka.

Mr. John Grant: A new pledge of £8 million capital aid was made at the Sri Lanka Aid Group meeting held in Paris in April. This compares with pledges of £1 million in 1973 and £3 million in 1974.
In addition, equipment worth £350,000 is to be provided for Sri Lanka's crash food programme, and we hope also to increase our technical assistance programme.

Mr. Canavan: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind the disgusting exploitation of labour that goes on in Sri Lanka, leading to degrading and inhuman conditions for tea plantation workers and their families? Will my hon. Friend take immediate steps to provide more aid bearing in mind that although Sri Lanka is one of the poorest countries in the world and is a member of the Commonwealth, she is excluded from the list of 46 countries which receive priority aid under the Common Market Lomé Convention?

Mr. Grant: I have already dealt with the question of aid to non-associates. I assure my hon. Friend that we shall continue to press hard on that matter. I The issue of the tea estates is one for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and, as the House knows, he is pursuing that matter actively.

Sir John Hall: Is the hon. Gentleman sure that any aid given to Sri Lanka is distributed so that the benefits are enjoyed by everyone, including the large numbers of stateless Tamils in the country?

Mr. Grant: There are difficulties about the distribution of aid. Our aim is to try to ensure that aid goes to the poorest people in the poorest countries, and, in particular, into rural development, which may benefit particularly the people whom the hon. Gentleman has in mind. But it is difficult for us to be sure. In the end it is very much a matter for the Government of Sri Lanka.

Overseas Visits

Mr. Ashley: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what plans he has to pay official visits to overseas countries.

Mr. Whitehead: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what plans he has to pay official visits to overseas countries.

Mr. John Grant: My right hon. Friend is attending the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD today. He has at present no firm plans for official visits to overseas countries.

Mr. Ashley: Is my hon. Friend aware that his right hon. Friend the Secretary R


of State has a fine record for helping underdeveloped countries, but that there is a national tendency for all Governments to cut overseas aid in times of economic crisis? Will my hon. Friend do what he can to ensure that underdeveloped countries do not become a major casualty because of cuts that may be announced at any time now?

Mr. Grant: I am sure that the Secretary of State has an excellent record in this matter, but I think my hon. Friend probably meant the Minister for Overseas Development. I assure my hon. Friend that should this sort of situation arise—we hope it will not—both my right hon. Friend and I will do all that we can to fulfil the kind of policies that he wants to see carried out.

Mr. Grylls: Will the hon. Gentleman press his right hon. Friend the Minister to pay a visit to Palestinian refugee camps in the Middle East and then persuade his European colleagues to increase the amount of European aid to help these poor people, who are in a terrible plight, as we all know?

Mr. Grant: I shall draw my right hon. Friend's attention to what the hon. Gentleman said. I hope shortly to visit not these camps but the headquarters of the United Nations Refugee Organisation.

Aid Priorities

Mr. Bryan Davies: asked the Minister of Overseas Development whether he intends to maintain the priorities established in Government overseas aid policies of concentrating aid on the poorest countries in the world and the poorest sectors of those countries.

Mr. John Grant: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Davies: I very much welcome that assurance. May I suggest to my hon. Friend that the issue of overseas aid, particularly to the poorest people in the world, is one area in which moderation is considerably less important than Socialist solutions to these problems?

Mr. Grant: I am glad that my hon. Friend approves my answer. I assure him that we shall pursue that policy. Indeed, perhaps I may tell him that it was pursued in Rome last week, when we were able to announce to the World Food Council that we would give an

extra 100,000 tons of fertilisers to the most seriously affected countries. That is about another £15 million worth of fertilisers. That was welcomed, and it is a positive sign that we are fulfilling the kind of policies that my hon. Friend has in mind.

Mrs. Kellet-Bowman: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in these countries it is also very important to encourage private investment, which provides jobs and food just as surely as do any Socialist solutions?

Mr. Grant: I doubt very much whether they do it as surely. It is primarily a matter for private industry, but when we can facilitate this sort of arrangement we do so.

Mr. Cryer: Will my hon. Friend make strong representations to aid the developing Countries through the EEC by getting rid of some of the food mountains which exist in spite of the referendum? Meat is going rotten, and there are 400,000 tons of skimmed milk. That is the kind of vital protein food that is needed for the underdeveloped countries. Will my hon. Friend make these representations urgently?

Mr. Grant: A considerable quantity of skimmed milk has been sent to the developing countries, but this comes back to what I said earlier—that we are pressing for a general increase in food aid in line with the Commission's proposals. I hope that when the Ministers meet again to discuss this subject we shall get a more positive response.

Mr. Wood: Can the hon. Gentleman say what proportion of our bilateral aid is now going to the least developed countries? If he cannot answer that question without notice, will he let me know in due course?

Mr. Grant: I shall let the right hon. Gentleman know. I should not like to give a positive answer now.

Botswana

Mr. Biffen: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what effect there has been on the exports of beef from Botswana, permitted under the Lomé Convention, of the recent beef levies applied by the common agricultural policy; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. John Grant: The Botswana Government have estimated that in the three months following the resumption of beef exports to the United Kingdom in March of this year, under the provisions agreed at Lomé, the payment of Community levies, amounting to about £1 million, has reduced receipts from sales to the United Kingdom market by 46 per cent.
Last week the Foreign Minister's Council in Luxembourg accepted the view put forward by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that the Community had a moral commitment to put this situation right and agreed to reduce the levy payable on ACP beef to 10 per cent., with the difference being made up by a 90 per cent. export tax. This means that 90 per cent. of the difference between the production price and the sales price will now accrue to the Botswana Government and not to the Community.
I think it is fair to say that this, together with certain technical improvements to the present arrangements already proposed by the Commission, means that the most important industry of this very poor country will be able to continue its activities on an economic basis.

Mr. Biffen: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm two points—first, that the arrangement initiated by his right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary last week at the Council of Ministers was decided upon in the teeth of sustained French opposition and, secondly, that the Government regard the arrangement that was then concluded as providing a valuable precedent for the progressive liberalisation of the provisions of the CAP?

Mr. Grant: I cannot confirm either of those points. I have no official information about what happened in the Council of Ministers' meeting.

Mr. Tugendhat: It is in the Financial Times.

Mr. Grant: I am sure it is a good source, and it is probably right, but I do not have the information officially. I can, however, tell the House that the Botswana Government are satisfied with the arrangement that has been made. I think that that confirms the necessity of having a British Minister at the negotiat-

ing table on behalf of the developing countries.

Mr. Jay: If the import levy is to be replaced by an export tax, does that not mean that the price will stay as high as it was, and that therefore the volume of exports is not likely to recover?

Mr. Grant: I think not. That is not the conclusion that was drawn by the Secretary of State.

Mr. Tugendhat: If the hon. Gentleman does not have official information about what happened, may I inform him that the decision was taken as a result of a majority vote in the Council? Does he agree that this great success by the Foreign Secretary, about which we are all pleased, shows the importance of majority voting on occasion, and will he draw that to the attention of such of his colleagues as, for instance, the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Energy?

Mr. Grant: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that unofficial confirmation of unofficial reports, and I shall draw my right hon. Friend's attention to what he has said.

Mr. Dalyell: Is not the truth of the matter that the Botswana Government were so pleased that they got the Foreign Secretary out of his bed at an ungodly hour to tell him how pleased they were?

Mr. Grant: Again, from unofficial reports, I understand that to be the case.

Mr. Biffen: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that whatever may be our views about membership of the Community, a thoroughly unsatisfactory state of affairs is revealed if the discussions in the Council of Ministers cannot be reported to this House in such a way that we know there was sustained French opposition, and if we have to rely upon the Financial Times, the authenticity of which I am prepared personally to underwrite? I believe that the hon. Gentleman believes the same.

Mr. Grant: I remind the hon. Gentleman that in the House last week, when the Foreign Secretary was answering Questions he referred to this matter in some detail. There is no reason why the hon. Gentleman should not put down a Question to the Foreign Secretary about


what one might call the intimate details of the negotiations, but I am not in a position to give them today.

Mr. Hooley: asked the Minister of Overseas Development if he will authorise special aid grants to Botswana during the current financial year over and above the programme already agreed.

Mr. John Grant: I have received no requests for additional aid to Botswana and I therefore have no action of this kind in mind.

Mr. Hooley: Does my hon. Friend agree that the recent behaviour of the Common Market towards Botswana's beef exports calls in question the good faith of the Lomé Convention? Will he assure us that Her Majesty's Government will not tolerate any further breaches of the spirit and intention of that agreement, such as have occurred in this instance?

Mr. Grant: I think that the vigorous action taken by the Secretary of State on this subject speaks for itself.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

Mr. Crouch: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In recent days the question has been raised with you of the way in which Question Time is used and abused. My point today is that I think that the House of Commons has been put into second place this afternoon by the Minister for Overseas Development not being here—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Whether Ministers attend or not is a matter for them, not for the Chair. I have no powers in that regard at all.

Mr. Crouch: Further to that point of order—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I have ruled that it is not a point of order. The attendance of Ministers is not a matter for the Chair.

Mr. Crouch: On a fresh point of order, regarding the rights of back benchers. At

Question Time it is the right of a back bencher to question the principal Minister responsible for a Department. I am only saying to you, Sir, as the guardian of our rights, that I feel that we have such rights to protect. If Ministers go abroad instead of attending here on the one day when they can come here, once every six or eight weeks, that is an abuse of the House, and puts back benchers in an impossible position in seeking to ask questions of that Department. That is my only point.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Overseas Development (Mr. John Grant): Further to that point of order. I have explained to the House and given the Minister's apology. I hope that the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) will accept that it is a very important meeting that my right hon. Friend is attending in Paris—

Mr. Crouch: So is this.

Mr. Grant: —which is very much in the interests of the developing world, which I know that the hon. Gentleman has very much at heart. If he puts this into perspective, especially in the light of the Question that he himself has down about Bangladesh, and takes into account what I have said, I think that he will agree that it is very much in the interests of Bangladesh that my right hon. Friend should be where he is now rather than at this Dispatch Box. I hope that he will also accept that there have been competent answers in his absence.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am not prepared to allow this discussion to go any further. This is not a matter for the Chair. There is nothing in the Standing Orders about the attendance of Ministers.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS

Ordered,
That the draft Building Societies (Special Advances) Order 1975 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.—[Mr. Coleman.]

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

[22ND ALLOTTED DAY]—considered.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Coleman.]

Orders of the Day — FISHING INDUSTRY

3.33 p.m.

Mr. Michael Jopling: On this day, when the Opposition have the choice of subject, we have decided that we want to raise the problems of the fishing industry, which are so serious at this time. I am glad that the Minister of Agriculture is here. I know that he has had important engagements elswhere, to which he was kind enough to ask me. We are grateful that he has come here and genuinely sorry that he has not been able to fulfil his other engagements.
Of all who work around the country and around our shores to supply the essential needs of this nation, none work more dangerously and more uncomfortably than the fishermen. No one—I include the coalminers—leads a tougher and harder life. We should certainly begin by expressing our admiration to our fishermen. But today our admiration is not enough. Today the fishing industry is in a serious mess—perhaps the most serious crisis that almost anyone in it can remember since the days of the war. The fishermen face great financial losses, ships being tied up and scrapped, considerable unemployment and even greater uncertainty about the future.
There are two main reasons why the industry is in this situation—first, the economic squeeze that it is suffering and, second, the uncertainty about the future, to which I have referred.
Taking first, the economic squeeze, fishermen and owners of boats are in a pincer-like grip, with sky-high costs of operation on the one hand and very low returns on the other. As a consequence, they face considerable financial losses. As an example, I would refer to some figures, produced the other day by the Scottish Trawlers Federation, which were sent to

the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, whom I am also glad to see here. In them, the federation's accountants show that on average the boats operated by their members over the six months to the end of March this year showed an average loss of £19,000 each. When one deducts the subsidy which they have received, that means that each of those boats in Scotland has had an average overall loss of £16,000.
However, even more up to date than figures for the period ended last March, I was interested to read in Fishing News of 20th June of a Hull trawler which came into that port after 19 days at sea and sold its catch for £22,560. The local manager of that line was quoted as saying that two years ago that same catch would have realised £35,000–55 per cent. more. He also said that, apart from the low return, the oil costs of that trip were four times what they were two years ago and that the bill for the trip alone came to over £5,000.
But it is not only the cost of oil which is putting up the costs of operation of our fishing fleets. They are having to face vastly increased wages. I see that there is a new wage claim in at the moment. High interest rates hit the industry hard. There is also the increased cost of gear and the large amount which has to be written off on those most expensive boats which use modern trawling techniques.
But these costs are matched by low returns. The price of fish, like those of other meats, has been depressed over the last year or 18 months. The price of fish has been affected indirectly by the world beef glut, of which we have spoken so much over the last year or so. The price of fish has also been affected by the lack of demand, particularly in the United States, for cod, which in the past they have traditionally imported from European waters and European countries.
As a consequence of the falling off in demand in the United States, we have felt increased pressure from fish supplied by other countries to British markets. This, too, has contributed to depressing our prices of fish here, which have added to the problems which our industry faces.
As an example of the impact of imports of fish into this country, in the first three months of this year the price of imported frozen cod was down by 32 per cent.,


while the quantity was up by 33 per cent. That shows the increased pressure on our own industry of the extra supplies and the lower price of fish.
The effect of increased operating costs and lower returns has naturally meant that with the losses has come the consequent laying up of a large proportion of our trawler fleet. The latest figures I have seen show that no fewer than 112 trawlers have been laid up and scrapped out of our fleet since January 1974. I have had estimates given to me by the industry that, unless the Minister does something fairly quickly to deal with the matter, another 60 trawlers will be put out of operation before the end of this year. So the Government must take action to stem this decline in the size of the fleet. We have had a very much faster decline in this country than has occurred in almost any other country in the North Atlantic and North Sea area.
Apart from the figures that I have quoted, there has been a large consequential decline as well in our inshore fleet. We must never forget our inshore fleet, which supplies about 59 per cent. of the volume of fish landings in Britain.
With all these trawlers and inshore boats going out of action in the course of the past year or 18 months, what does this mean in terms of the amount of fish landed in this country by our own fishermen? Again, the latest figure that I have seen is that since January 1974 the catching capacity of the British fishing fleet has declined by 93,000 tons. I am told that, if this decline continues, by the end of the year, if these extra 60 trawlers are put out of action, it will mean a decline of 160,000 tons per annum of whole fish being landed by our trawler fleet alone.
The value of all that fish—160,000 tons —I have had estimated at about £50 million. So the consequence of inaction will be that, if the decline in the size of our fleet continues, we shall have to spend at least an extra £50 million a year importing fish as a consequence of the decline in our trawling fleet alone. That does not take into account the very important size of the inshore fleet and the share of our fish supplies that it has.
Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that, if this decline continues, in the future we may have to spend up to £100

million a year extra on buying from other sources fish which would otherwise have been caught and provided by the British trawling industry.
Therefore, who can doubt the anxiety of our fishermen as they see their share of the market and the size of their fleet declining rapidly? Can anyone be surprised that there have been no new applications to the White Fish Authority within the past year for help in building new boats?
The House has previously debated the problems of the trawling and fishing boat building industry. That industry is in very serious difficulty indeed. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us today of new steps to be taken which will provide confidence again so that our fishing boat building industry can see orders coming in which it has not seen for so long.
I believe that the whole attitude of the fishing industry was summed up in a letter sent on 20th May by the British Trawlers Federation to Members of the House who have fishing interests in their constituencies, which said:
The industry is in danger of total collapse but very few seem to be noticing or caring.
Today we on this side are having this debate because we care. We care about the loss of capacity and the lost use of resources to the country. We are concerned and care about the lost employment. Already over 1,000 jobs have been lost. I have seen estimates that, if the decline continues, another 1,500 jobs will be lost. This is only in the actual fishing operation. It does not take care of all the ancillary jobs in processing, packaging and distribution which inevitably go with it.
It seems strange that the Government should be presiding over this sort of decline and such hard terms at the same time as they have produced their White Paper on the agricultural industry—"Food From Our Own Resources". I am sure that the Minister will agree with me that there is no basic difference between the production of food from our soil by British people and with British resources and the production of fish from our seas by British people and with British resources.
I was interested in some remarks which the Prime Minister is quoted as making


at the Royal Show at Stoneleigh only this morning. I copied them straight off the tape just before I came to the House and I read them as quoted on the tape:
It made sense to expand food production in Britain.
If that is what the Prime Minister thinks, I greatly hope that we shall hear this afternoon of new steps and new proposals by the Government to give new confidence and the hope of expansion again to our fish-producing industry in the same way as the Government have proposed for our food-producing industry from our soil.
Apart from the problems of the economy, there are also major problems of uncertainty facing the industry. I spoke about those in my opening remarks. There is a whole range of areas where there is uncertainty. We have seen over the past months the debates which have been carried on at the Conference on the Law of the Sea. Unhappily, these talks have broken down temporarily. I know that the breakdown has not primarily been about fishing, although this has featured in it.
I am sorry that the talks have broken down, but it remains our policy on this side of the House to support a 200-mile exclusive economic zone around our coasts. I hope that the Government will tell us that they will continue to press for this. We on this side also believe that there should be an area within that 200-mile EEZ which is restricted to United Kingdom vessels. We believe strongly that consideration should be given to the interests of coastal States like our own. We greatly hope that the Government will insist on keeping a 200-mile EEZ exclusive area for our own vessels.

Mr. James Johnson: As the North Sea is not exactly 400 miles wide, do I take it that the hon. Gentleman wants, like myself, a median which is 11 miles off Dover, 50 miles off Yarmouth or Lowestoft, and 150 miles off Hull? Is something of that nature what he is after?

Mr. Jopling: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman misunderstood me. There is very little argument between the two sides and in places outside the House about how to deal with an area like the North Sea, which, as the hon. Gentleman says, is not 400 miles wide. There is little

argument about how it should be split in the way the hon. Gentleman describes. I accept that.
The general view, both in the House and outside it, is that a 200-mile exclusive economic zone will come, and we hope that it comes as soon as possible. Here lies a cause of uncertainty. Not only do our fishermen not know for sure whether there will be a 200-mile zone, but there is uncertainty about what might happen in the meantime. We have all heard rumours. We have heard stories in the Press and elsewhere that in the meantime, pending some agreement at the Conference on the Law of the Sea, some countries might be tempted to go for a 200-mile zone unilaterally. We have heard rumours that the United States and Canada might do this. It has been suggested that this would trigger off Iceland and Norway to do the same sort of thing. Therefore I hope the Minister will tell us what his attitude is to these threats. We have suggested that in the meantime there might be some sense in our Government engaging in bilateral talks with Norway particularly, and perhaps Iceland as well, to see whether we can form some agreements, say, up to 50 miles, from our coasts. I hope this is regarded by the Minister as a helpful and constructive suggestion. It may be that nothing would come of it, but we believe that there is opportunity here for an attempt.
The Commissioner in Brussels, Mr. Lardinois, has been making very welcome noises to the effect that if Norway or Iceland were unilaterally to declare a 200-miles exclusive economic zone, the Community would react in a very forceful way. I welcome that statement. I hope the Minister will give his full support to Mr. Lardinois. I am sure the whole House will agree that now that we are full members of the Economic Community our hand is strengthened very much in the event of some of these countries being tempted to declare unilaterally a 200-miles zone.

Mr. John Prescott: I have listened to the hon. Gentleman's argument with close attention. It seems to me that if he is arguing the use of the strength of the Community to negotiate against Iceland's unilateral declaration, it is contrary to his earlier argument that he hopes to say to the


Community "We are going to declare an Iceland on you", which he was calling for in the earlier part of his speech.

Mr. Jopling: I do not think I have done that. I do not recall any part of my speech in which I have done so. I hope the hon. Gentleman will read Hansard tomorrow. I do not think he will find that I said that at all.
I hope the Minister will tell us that it Iceland and Norway were unilaterally to declare a 200-mile zone there would then be no question of those countries fishing in similar zones around our own coast. I hope this will be understood in those countries—that if they declare a zone unilaterally they must expect to give up all their rights to fish in areas close to our coasts.
The next form of uncertainty to which I should like to refer is the important matter of the conservation of stocks. We have recently seen a recommendation which the North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission thrashed out a few weeks ago. We hope very much that those proposals will be ratified by the member countries. As I understand it, it needs only three countries to refuse to ratify these suggestions for them to be void. There are rumours—the Minister will have heard them—that it is likely that three nations will refuse to ratify the Commission's recommendations. I hope the Government are using the diplomatic machine to its fullest extent to try to persuade any potential dissidents from these recommendations into ratification. It is very important. Indeed, it is absolutely essential, and particularly for this country, that we take every possible step to conserve the fishing stocks around our coasts.
The truth is that some nations in the North Sea and beyond have fished regardlessly and irresponsibly in the past few years. Some countries have scooped certain parts of the North Sea and the North-East Atlantic clean of certain sorts of fish, and some of those countries are now turning to the waters around our coasts with the intention of scooping them clean, too. I hope the Minister will be able to tell us that he will be taking every possible step to ensure that the conservation of stocks is very high on his list of priorities.
It is also important that the Government do all they can to institute proper policing, where there are quotas and agreements, in the waters around our shores. There has been a good deal of cheating by various countries in underreporting catches, and it is important that that is dealt with.
I hope the right hon. Gentleman also will use his best endeavours to control industrial fishing of edible species, because we have seen in the past far too much of countries scooping all sorts of fish, including many under-sized fish, which should be the breeding stocks of the future, and including them in their fish meal catches.
I hope the right hon. Gentleman will do what he can to reduce the menace of beam trawling. I know that there are various parts of our country, such as Brixham, where beam trawling is an important part of the local economy, but it is generally felt that beam trawling is an evil, and I hope the Minister will continue to do what he can in this matter.
I think that our fishermen have behaved very responsibly in connection with the conservation of stocks. I was very impressed by a remarkable offer by the Scottish inshore fishermen to stop altogether the fishing of herring off the North-West coast of Scotland during the period June to September. This seems to exhibit the height of responsibility, and I am very glad that it was our fishermen who made such a generous offer.
Let me now turn to what we want the Government to do in this crisis and in this time of difficulty. I hope, first, that the Government will use this debate to assert their determination to help the fishing industry, and tell us what action they intend to take to protect this form of our food-producing industry. There is the opportunity of taking positive steps in the European Community. I believe that the common fisheries policy has been shown by events to be inadequate in modern times. I do not believe that the common fisheries policy can cope with the probability in the next few months, as I hope, of a 200-mile exclusive economic zone. I do not believe that the common fisheries policy, as it is, is capable of dealing with the degree of inflation of the costs of fishing and


the need to recoup from the Market the cost of producing the fish. Nor do I believe that the common fisheries policy is able now to cope with a Community of Nine nations as opposed to the Six for which it was originally designed.
The recent fisheries package which the Minister brought back from Brussels and told us about does not seem to me to have had much effect. The industry has described the package as irrelevant. It has described the cold storage scheme as being too meagre. It has said of the export restitution scheme that it cannot stimulate any substantial exports. With regard to reference prices, the industry has said that they could have been very useful indeed if they had been fixed at realistic levels.
We want from the Government an assurance that they will take urgent steps to modernise the common fisheries policy, as it has become out of date in the course of the last year or so. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will tell us of the Government's determination to stand firm on the rights of our inshore fishermen after 1982. We believe very strongly that preference should be given within the Community to coastal States and their inshore fishing fleets.

Mr. Ted Leadbitter: I hope that in the hon. Gentleman's analysis of the situation—and I am sure he would agree that much more could have been said but for the short time available—he would nevertheless emphasise that the vast majority of inshore fishermen are one-boat owners and that this is a characteristic of the traditional family supported occupations. Therefore they need special treatment within the context of the Common Market in order to assist them on matters already raised.

Mr. Jopling: I wish that the hon. Gentleman would visit my constituency and make a speech such as that which he has just made to the self-employed there, because not many of them take the worthwhile view that he takes about the antics of the Government.
Finally, we must have Government action on the extension of the White Fish and Herring Subsidies Scheme. As the Minister well knows, that scheme expires tonight. I confess that I am somewhat surprised that the Government have not

already extended it. I am astonished that they have not made an announcement in the course of the past few days about the future. I shall re-read to the House the remarks of the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when we debated in the First Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments on 21st May the scheme which has run for the past six months and which expires tonight. The right hon. Gentleman said:
More and more voyages were returning a loss. An increasing number of vessels were being scrapped, laid up, sold or put to other work and, without some ray of hope of future improvement the rate of rundown of the fleet was in danger of reaching unacceptable proportions, with all the social, economic and structural problems that that would entail. And of course a severe rundown, once the less economic units of the fleet have been eliminated, could only mean loss of catching capacity for the future, with later shortages and high prices to consumers or an increase in the import bill which the nation can ill afford."—[Official Report, First Standing Committee On Statutory Instruments: 21st May 1975, c. 3–4.]
If I had had to take a text for what I have said this afternoon, those remarks by the Minister would have been my text, because that was the gist of what I have been trying to say. However, since those days matters have not improved. We still have all the problems which I have mentioned. We are still in danger of having to import more fish and we are still in danger of many more boats having to be tied up and more people losing their jobs. Matters are not even just the same today; they are worse.
Therefore it is essential that the scheme is renewed today. If it is not, this country will be the only country within the European Economic Community not to aid its fleet in this way. At present the Norwegians are spending about £45 million on giving this sort of aid to their fleet. We look forward to the Government's announcement today that the subsidy will continue for another six months. Indeed, Mr. Lardinois in Brussels has said that it should happen. I have no doubt that the Minister was one of those who raised his hand in Brussels to allow governments to give this sort of aid. That related to the problems of horticulture. The Minister agreed, in Brussels, to let other countries subsidise and support their fishing industries, and he should not deny aid to our fishing industry.
The Opposition are in favour, as we have said, of reduced Government spending overall. However, we have always said that we are prepared for increases to be awarded to certain sectors, and help for the food-producing sector is one. The continuation of this scheme will cost around £6¼ million in the next six months. We believe that that is a small price to pay. It will save imports, and we must have the scheme. It is essential that it continues because it is vital to the industry's survival.
We shall listen carefully to what the Minister says this afternoon. We are anxious not to vote on this issue. We believe that support for the fishing industry—and the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Johnson), who is chairman of the All-Party Fisheries Committee, will agree with me—has always been on an all-party basis and we are anxious not to break that tradition. However, we reserve the right both to vote this afternoon and to return to this topic later. I hope that it will not be necessary to do so. Above all, I hope that this debate will serve to draw attention to this great and important industry and to its need for this vital assistance from the Government.

4.5 p.m.

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Fred Peart): The hon. Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) has pointed out that the fishing industry is facing a difficult, if not critical, situation. I believe that he is right, therefore, that we should debate this matter today. I agree with him on many matters that he has analysed. However, I cannot agree with him about his constituency. He must also remember that his own leader has made a plea for cutting down public expenditure. I shall deal with the matters he has raised on subsidies later in my speech, together with all the other points he has raised.
I am glad that I have been able to open this debate, but I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Minister of State is not able to be present. He took part in the two very successful meetings I had with the All-Party Fisheries Committee. I was glad that the hon. Member for Westmorland paid tribute to that committee. It is a forum that I have always attended

and at which we discussed—not as party people—the issues affecting the fishing industry. I believe that the hon. Gentleman has made a careful, moderate and constructive speech and I make no complaint. Obviously he has a right to say that the Government must do this and that, and he has a right to ask me for my views. Like myself and the Minister of State, he has been visiting fishing ports. Indeed, I was at Lowestoft not long ago, and I have also visited Hull. I have also met the fishing industry. It is right that I should understand the policy of the industry.
The industry is as important as the agricultural industry in the sense that it catches and produces food for the British people. I would not argue with the hon. Gentleman that the industry faces serious difficulties. I will begin by taking an overall view of what has caused them.
The hon. Gentleman made a fair analysis and I want to elaborate on it. Basically there are three causes. First, the industry faces serious economic difficulties which are linked to the economic difficulties facing the economy generally. Secondly, there are problems arising from the over-exploitation of fish stocks and from the need for conservation measures. Thirdly, there are difficulties which stem from uncertainty about fishing limits—both those of the United Kingdom and of countries off whose coasts our deep-sea fleet traditionally fishes. These three problems are separate in their origin but, as I think the hon. Gentleman would agree, from his analysis, they interact on each other.
Problems of the economic return from fishing are exacerbated by the problems of fish stocks. As a result, confidence in the industry is affected and confidence is further damaged by worries about future fishing limits. Our Scottish friends have raised this over and over again. I shall come on to discuss each of these problems separately and how they affect our fishing industry.
Before I do so, however, it is worth making a general point about the industry itself. We often talk about it as though it were a single entity. But, of course, it is not. Our fishermen compete not only with foreign fleets but also with each other. Individual sections of the industry have their own problems,


and the solutions to the problems of one sector can cause difficulties for other sectors. For example, small boat fishermen might well see advantage in excluding from grounds they have traditionally fished bigger and more powerful boats based elsewhere. But protection for the one would be at the prejudice of the other. Similarly, unilateral action in the interests of inshore fishermen to exclude vessels from third countries from waters off our shores could precipitate comparable action elsewhere to the detriment of the distant water section of the industry. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Johnson), who is Chairman of the All-Party Fisheries Committee, would agree with me on that issue.
The Government have to take an overall view and try to act in the interests of the United Kingdom industry as a whole. This is a heavy responsibility and one which I take seriously. I believe that our fishing fleet is the biggest in the Community and an important national asset.
I said that I would be looking in more detail at the causes of the industry's difficulties. The first of these is economic.
In 1972 and 1973 the first-hand prices of fish rose sharply along with the prices of other food commodities due to circumstances in world commodity markets which no one could have foreseen. In Western Europe food processors hastened to build up stocks of frozen fish because they thought prices might rise further. The result was that heavy stocks were accumulated and have not yet been dissipated. They still overhang the market and depress prices.
Over the last two years the market in North America, mentioned by the hon. Member for Westmorland, which has traditionally taken substantial supplies of West European and Scandinavian cod has been taking instead, as he knows, heavy supplies of Alaskan pollack. So the cod supplies which normally go to the United States of America and Canada have also been depressing prices on the West European market. The result has been that first-hand prices of fish have been static or even falling since the middle of 1974.
The industry might have withstood the pressure arising from static prices but for

the increases in costs. They were led by the savage increases in the price of fuel which began in September 1973 and continued until very recently. This has meant not only that fishermen have had to pay more for their oil or petrol but also that gear such as nets which are made from materials extracted from crude oil is also much more expensive. Together with the general inflation of costs, the industry has been caught in a severe cost-price squeeze.
I must emphasise—as I do today—that the Government have not stood idly by. We knew that some contraction of the fleet would be right, particularly after the boom years of 1972 and 1973, and also in the knowledge that fishing nations around the North Atlantic and North Sea would have to reduce their fishing efforts in order to conserve stocks. The Government did not allow the squeeze on the industry to continue unchecked. We thought that a serious structural situation might be developing, and so my hon. Friend the Minister of State announced a system of temporary aid for the fishing industry on 27th February. We expected to inject aid to the tune of £6¼ million by means of a daily rate payment system operating for the first six months of this year.
Now I accept that the aid made available did not satisfy everyone. No system of Government aid ever has! But we were able to give help to the vessels which provide more than 90 per cent. of the nation's supply of white fish and herring, and these are, in the main, staple foods and a cheap source of protein for the housewife. This is important because we are concerned with the nation's food supply.
I have been asked about an extension of the subsidy. I should like to be in a position today to say whether and in what form this aid can be continued, but I say to the hon. Member for Westmorland that I am afraid that I cannot do so. However, we are considering the question urgently and carefully, and we shall announce our decision as soon as possible. I cannot go beyond that today.

Mr. Kevin McNamara: Does my right hon. Friend hope to be making a statement before the rising of the House for the Summer Recess?

Mr. Peart: I hope that I shall make a statement. I cannot go beyond that. I am certain that my hon. Friend understands the politics of this matter.

Mr. James Prior: Are we to gather from what the right hon. Gentleman is saying that this could form part of the economic statement to be made later this month by the Government?

Mr. Peart: I cannot pre-judge this matter. This is something specific in which I am involved and interested. I can say no more at this stage.
A moment ago I mentioned the housewife. Even though fish is a source of relatively cheap protein, the housewife has seen the prices on the fishmonger's slab rise and stay high, and inevitably in her mind there must be a question of why there is a wide gap between the quayside price of fish and its price on the fishmonger's slab or in the fish and chip shop. The Government have taken action here also, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection has called upon the Price Commission to make an inquiry into the marketing margins and distribution of fish. I mentioned this at the meeting of the all-party committee. We want to know why this gap exists and if it can be justified. Only an inquiry like this can tell us.
I turn to the question of imports. A lot of people would have liked us to ban imports as a means of helping the industry. But that proposition, I assert, is not realistic. Firstly, it would have meant taking action against friendly nations like Norway and Iceland. Secondly, it would mean taking action against the housewife, because we need those imports to help satisfy the demand from the consumer. The problem was much more one of price than of supply. After informal discussion at official level, the Norwegian Government unilaterally set up a minimum export price scheme which was aimed at avoiding disturbance of the market in the United Kingdom. This was a help, despite criticisms.
The Council of Ministers in Brussels had also recognised the serious nature of the problem affecting the market for fish, and at its meeting on 28th-29th April a package of measures was made up. We took the initiative here. The package was aimed at alleviating the

depressing effects on the fish market of the heavy stocks of frozen fish. For us in the United Kingdom the most important measure was the introduction of reference prices for frozen fish. It is all very well for the hon. Member for Westmorland to criticise this. I believe this was a gain and an advance.
It is worth saying more about this point. First, it is a permanent system under the control of the Community itself and applicable to the whole Common Market. Secondly, if supplies of frozen fish enter from third countries below these reference prices, the Community can restrict or even ban the imports.
Thirdly, these are wide powers but they are powers that will have to be used with an eye to balancing the needs of consumers and of producers. Then, of course, the level of the prices can be reviewed in the light of experience. Fourthly, the prices are broadly comparable with those in the Norwegian scheme. Some are a little higher, some are a little lower, but the general effect is the same. The important point is that the system is now on a permanent and Community-wide basis and under Community control.

Mr. Leadbitter: My right hon. Friend's last few words, "under Community control", are the operative words. Whether or not these advantages, which he declares have been gained—which I am not prepared to dispute—both with Norway and with the EEC, will my right hon. Friend say to what extent they have been acceptable to the British fishing industry?

Mr. Peart: I think that generally people in the industry have broadly welcomed this. This is a major advance because it gives us the power to ban exports coming in below a reference price. This is what the fishing industry has always wanted. We can use it as we wish. I believe that the British presence in the Community—it is for this reason that I defended it—will make an important contribution to the development of this policy. I shall come to that later.
I should like to refer now to conservation measures. How right the hon. Member for Westmorland was in stressing this matter. It is a matter of common knowledge that the fish stocks in the waters that we normally fish are running down.


The reason is simple. Bluntly, the seas are being over-fished. I agree with the hon. Gentleman about that. In these circumstances it is natural that pressure should arise for us to take measures to conserve our stocks, particularly in the waters nearer our coasts, and this pressure is very understandable. But we must take a broad view. The most effective conservation measures are those taken by international agreement, because the stocks of fish can migrate from place to place, and hence they can be fished by fishermen of many nationalities. The fish swim about—

Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith: Is the right hon. Gentleman sure?

Mr. Peart: —and we must therefore think of waters outside our own control when dealing with these matters. I realise that the hon. Gentleman is being humorous, and he is a former fisheries Minister.
Always when discussing conservation we must think beyond our own unilateral position. That is all I am emphasising. Conservation, therefore, is an international problem, and its solution must also be international. It is all very well for people to be brave and talk of unilateral action. Unilateral action will give no solution to our problems in these matters. As hon. Members know, the United Kingdom is an active member of the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission and of the International Commission for the North West Atlantic Fisheries.

Mr. Donald Stewart: May I revert to the right hon. Gentleman's last point about unilateral action? Does he recall the situation in the 1960s when fishermen were asking for the limit to be extended to 12 miles? The Government at that time said that we could not take unilateral action and when the time actually came we were the last North Sea country to do it?

Mr. Peart: I believe now, in view of what has happened—I have referred to the discussions in the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission, and our negotiations with other countries—that it is far better to try to achieve an international solution. I am sure that that is so, though I understand the argument which the hon. Gentleman puts. I am

emphasising that it is important that we seek to negotiate an international agreement.
The North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission, which I regard as the more important body from the United Kingdom point of view, has just held its annual meeting, as hon. Members know. At that meeting, it was agreed to recommend new quota arrangements for herring in the North Sea and the West of Scotland, as well as for sole and plaice in the North Sea, the English Channel, the Bristol Channel and the Irish Sea. Catch quotas have also been determined for cod stocks in the important north-east Arctic fishery.
The continuation of the present quota schemes for the stocks of cod, haddock and whiting in the North Sea and other major fishing grounds around our coasts will be discussed at the Commission's special meeting in November.
I know that there has been some reduction in some of the quotas, and these reductions are not popular. Nevertheless, the sacrifices have been borne by all and serve, I believe, our longer-term interests in our efforts to ensure a continuing supply of fish.

Mr. J. Grimond: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I am grateful to him for taking up certain questions with his colleagues on the Continent regarding quotas. When he says that the schemes are to remain until November, he should bear in mind that the quotas for Scotland are so small that the industry there will go out of business this summer, and in the meantime it seems that the Danish and the Icelandic quotas remain huge for industrial fishing.

Mr. Peart: I acknowledge that, and, as I informed the right hon. Gentleman, I had unilateral discussions with the Danish Government about that. I shall pursue the matter before November. The same will apply to Iceland. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving me an opportunity to mention that, although I did intend to refer to it later.
As I said, I realise that the reductions in some of the quotas are not popular, but I believe that the proposals agreed last month for a complete ban on industrial fishing for herring represent a step


forward in the rational management of fisheries resources. This is where the view expressed so often by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) is important, and, as I mentioned, he will recall that I discussed the matter with him before the NEAFC meeting and I spoke to the Danish Minister concerned.
While some fish stocks are of value only for reduction for industrial purposes, the unregulated use of valuable human consumption fish for this is, in our view, a deplorable waste of the stock's potential as a food resource. The United Kingdom delegation played a major rôle in these discussions and has tabled for further discussion at the special meeting a range of proposals for even stricter control of the by-catch of protected species caught in industrial fisheries.
Taken together with the extensive range of existing regulatory measures covering the mesh of nets, minimum sizes for fish and international joint inspection of vessels, all these measures represent a major advance towards the more rational utilisation and conservation of the stocks on which the livelihoods of our fishermen depend.
When dealing with the conservation of stocks, I referred to the pressure for some extension of fishing limits. I said that I could understand this pressure for us to undertake a unilateral extension of limits in order to protect our stocks, but this would not necessarily result in a benefit for our industry. I doubt that a unilateral extension could be enforced if other States chose to disregard it, and there is no reason why they should accept it. Furthermore, reckless action on our part could jeopardise international conservation measures where we have recently made the progress which I described a few moments ago.
Hon. Members will know that at the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea we supported the principle of the 200-mile economic zone. This would give coastal States sovereign rights over the resources of fish within 200 miles of the coast. It remains—I repeat this today, in response to the request by the hon. Member for Westmorland to know my attitude—the policy of the Government to

participate in a general extension of limits by international agreement.
I come now to Iceland and the question of the 200-mile limit. We knew that the Icelandic Government intended to adopt unilaterally their own 200-mile limit some time this year. A recent announcement by Iceland's Prime Minister, therefore, did not add much to what we already knew. Nor does it necessarily make any difference to what our fishermen may catch off Iceland. Almost all the fish we take there is caught inside what Iceland already claims to be her 50-mile fishery limit. The fishing activities of our vessels are governed by the interim agreement which the previous Government negotiated in 1973. This agreement expires in November, but it is the Government's aim to initiate a new agreement providing continued access to Icelandic waters for our vessels. I hope that that satisfies the hon. Gentleman.
I come now to the common fisheries policy of the European Community. This was raised by the hon. Member for Westmorland, and I was questioned about it also by my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Leadbitter). So far, I have talked in rather general terms about the 200-mile limit for fisheries. But there is an aspect of this subject of great importance to us. I know that there is a good deal of concern in the industry about how we might be affected by the provisions of the Community common fisheries policy relating to access to fishing grounds if and when the 200-mile limits become generally adopted. I fully share that concern. We shall probably have to accept that a decline in distant-water fishing opportunities is likely. This will put pressure on the fishing industries of all Community countries. But the United Kingdom, both in terms of the size of our industry and by virtue of the wealth of resources around our coasts, is the most important fishery nation in the Community. I have stressed that over and over again to M. Lardinois and other Community representatives.

Mr. Donald Stewart: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way to me a second time. It is disturbing to some of us who represent inshore fisheries that in the agenda presented to the House last week for the next round of talks there is no question of bringing up the EEC fisheries policy.

Mr. Peart: If one wishes, one may always take an initiative. I have done that on previous occasions. I shall look carefully at the point which the hon. Gentleman has raised.
I have already stressed this and I hope that hon. Members will accept what I have said. We have a major stake in this matter and will want a favourable outcome of any talks or negotiations. We are also the most important consumers of fish in the Community. Nor do I forget that certain parts of this country are very heavily dependent on the industry. It is not just a question of producers and processors. Many other people are also involved.
For all of these reasons, I called upon my colleagues in the Council of Ministers to initiate a re-appraisal of the common fisheries policy in the light of the changes likely to emerge from the United Nations Law of the Sea Conference. I was glad to see how readily my colleagues in the Council accepted this suggestion. I criticised the fisheries policy when the hon. Member for Westmorland was defending his Government. I have never particularly liked it, but it is there and it has to be adapted. I made clear in the Council that I was not rejecting the concept of a common fisheries policy but that it was necessary to adapt the policy to meet a situation quite different from that in which it was originally formulated.
Now that our membership of the Community is confirmed, in quite unambiguous terms, I am glad to say, we are in a position to press ahead with this task, and I hope that I shall have the support of every hon. Member and all parties.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: As the right hon. Gentleman is calling for the support of the whole House for the adaptation of the common fisheries policy, can he outline the form of the adaptation for which he wishes support?

Mr. Peart: That would take another long speech, but I am asking for support because of the failure of the Law of the Sea Conference to reach agreement, and the importance of protecting the producer and the consumer. Decisions have to be taken on reference prices backed by the Community and on limits which would be affected by a 200-mile economic zone or by the actions of other Powers. These are

matters which we can discuss in the Community and we can come forward more strongly with a Community plan.
I will not speak for much longer as this is a short debate, but I cannot disguise the fact that there are difficult problems for the fishing industry. I repeat that the Government will stand by an economically operating industry, rationally exploiting the resources open to it, and an industry which provides an essential part of the nation's diet. I am glad that we have had this debate and I hope that it will be continued in a constructive way.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): Before calling the next hon. Member to speak, I would remind the House that there are 15 hon. Members who wish to speak in the two hours left for back benchers.

4.33 p.m.

Mr. Richard Wood: I very rarely quote from my past speeches, not because they do not deserve quotation but because I do not wish to encourage other hon. Members in this practice. Long ago in my maiden speech in a fisheries debate, I suggested that whatever the unknowns of the agricultural industry, the harvest of the land, compared with the harvest of the sea, presented a glorious certainty. This has possibly become even truer over the years, except that the relative uncertainties are harder to measure in the light of the general dreadful uncertainty in which we all have to live.
The fishing industry's present lack of confidence is all too evident and the reasons for it are disturbingly compelling. Most of them have already been mentioned by the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling), so I will keep my references brief. There is the uncertainty about future limits, and the impossibility of planning investment until final decisions have been taken by the United Nations Law of the Sea Conference. There is also the difficulty that demand for our catches in Britain depends on a number of factors, only marginally connected with the fishing industry in this country. There is a need for effective and enforceable arrangements to make sure that there are fish to catch around our shores in a few years' time. There is the fear, very much held by the inshore fishermen


in my constituency, of interference with their traditional methods of unloading their catch, and, above all, there is the economic squeeze, beyond which new burdens being proposed for the industry seem likely to be the straw, or shall I say sprat, which will break the skipper's back. Some of these doubts can be more easily resolved than others. The common agricultural policy has admirable objectives, but is sometimes less than admirable in operation. Similarly, changes in the common fisheries policy are necessary.
In all the discussions I had with fishermen in my constituency before the referendum, I expressed the confidence, which I still feel—and I was heartened by what the Minister said—that changes which Britain could negotiate would relieve at least part of this uncertainty. Although it is only part of the problem, successful action on limits could bring us a great deal nearer a constructive policy of conservation than complete reliance on what has been a far from satisfactory quota system.
The present threat to the fishing industry is miserably undeniable. No one, not even the Minister, has tried to deny it. It contains several other serious contributory threats—the threat of further burdens on our balance of payments, which is very serious, the threat of additional unemployment, and, perhaps more serious of all, the threat of a permanent and irreplaceable loss of fishing capacity in this country. A dangerous reduction of capacity has already been forced on the British industry in recent months—alone among members of the Community.
There will be very great disappointment about the delay—I am giving the Minister every benefit of the doubt—announced for the decision on the continuation of the oil subsidy. It will bring disappointment even if he agrees to continue the subsidy. It might reduce, though it will probably not arrest, the decline about which we are now complaining, and it has contained in the past no comfort for the smaller boats. I imagine the Minister will argue questions of cost and administrative difficulties, but these seem very small beside the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland for extending it to smaller boats, which are in very great need. I have

never felt that subsidies should be a permanent, or could be a satisfactory answer to our economic problems, but our fishermen, if they are to continue, and it is surely in the interests of Britain that they should continue, must be assured of a fair return for their labour. They are not getting that at present.
It is very foolish to make comparisons with other occupations, but it is undeniably true that thousands of people are now more richly rewarded for work that is less arduous and difficult and for which the reward is much more certain. It is also foolish to compare the case of the inshore men with that of the larger boats except that they land more than half our catch and are, therefore, entitled to at least half the consideration the Government give to the whole industry.

Mrs. Winifred Ewing: Will the right hon. Member give way?

Mr. Wood: No. I hope the hon. Lady will forgive me. If I am to conform with your request, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I dare not sit down for the hon. Lady.
Like many other hon. Members, I firmly believe that the Government are answerable for a great deal of the uncertainty and anxiety which now besets most of our productive enterprises. I do not take the view that the lack of certainty and confidence in the fishing industry can so fairly be laid at the door of the Minister himself and I applaud the sympathetic visits which the Parliamentary Secretary has made to fishing ports in my part of Yorkshire and in other parts of the country. I want to plead for energetic action to arrest the decline before it is too late.

4.41 p.m.

Mr. Kevin McNamara: I do not intend to take a great deal of time in this debate, nor to develop many of the interesting points which have already been made. I want to concentrate on the position of the deep and middle water fishermen who are members of my union and who are my constituents or who live in the other constituencies in Hull and Grimsby.
I was a little disappointed that my right hon. Friend was unable to say anything more positive about further help for the industry. We implore him


to make a statement as early as possible on this matter, which is of vital importance to the industry. Over the last year employment prospects in this industry have been severely curtailed. Unemployment of registered fishermen in the port of Hull has nearly doubled, and that has taken place in an area which already had above-average male unemployment—8·2 per cent.—and where employment opportunities are fast disappearing. In spite of our hopes for the future in terms of people bringing home money from full employment to buy food for their families rather than living on unemployment benefit, the job opportunities are rapidly diminishing. It is not a happy sight to see the number of unemployed fishermen nearly double in the last 12 months.
I am concerned not only in terms of what is happening in Humberside as a whole, but for the employment prospects in the other major fishing ports where the members of my union are employed. Because of the regional location of these ports and because of the distribution of industry in the rest of the country, their employment prospects are severely limited. At the beginning of last year there were 375 trawlers. At the end of this year we shall be lucky if there are just over 200. Every time we lose a trawler we are immediately losing 20 or 30 jobs, and in the long run there is a further loss in terms of employment in shipbuilding and in all the services associated with the fishing industry.
This is why it is of the utmost importance that when my right hon. Friend negotiates on the common fisheries policy he looks at the question of the sea limits. That is also why an early decision is vitally necessary. All the questions of investment policies, the types of vessels to be used and the agreements we will have to enter into bilaterally with other nations are of the utmost importance not only for confidence in investment but in order to maintain employment in our areas. My principal aim in this debate is to stress the importance of these aspects.
The problem is further heightened by the fact that fishing is still a casual industry. For those who work in it, whether skippers or deckie learners, it has none of the cushions which exist in ordinary urban industry. There is no

Contracts of Employment Act and no Redundancy Payments Act. There is no proper Government registration scheme for cushioning fishermen at times of unemployment. This degree of unemployment percolates not only through families but throughout the whole community.
When my right hon. Friend is conducting his negotiations he must consider what is to happen to the middle-water and distant-water fleets and what their future holds with a 200-mile economic zone for all nations. What steps will the Government take to help to restructure this industry, in terms not only of the immediate interests of the employers but of the men who are employed in the industry who have represented its sinews in both real and metaphorical terms since the industry has operated from Humber-side.
This is an important and pressing matter. In this brief speech I will not go into all the intricacies of the negotiations which have to be made at intergovernmental and Community level, but in terms of basic bread and butter issues and the livelihoods of many of our constituents and their families and of those working in the associated industries two things are vital. First, we must have an early statement of the Government's intentions to help the industry. Secondly, the Government must press for decisions as quickly as possible on a sensible common fisheries policy—and new fishing limits in the rest of the world—which will ensure the livelihoods of our constituents.

4.46 p.m.

Mr. A.J. Beith: All the Members taking part in the debate today are well aware of the seriousness of the position facing the industry, and that point does not need to be laboured. I was struck by the number of working fishermen I have seen in the last few days who were far more aware of our proceedings than usual. They knew that Parliament was to debate fishing this afternoon and they are looking to our debate with greater concern and attention than our debates normally attract. They will be bitterly disappointed if there is no clear indication from the Government on certain vital issues this afternoon, particularly on the future of the fuel cost subsidy and the time scale within which the Government hope to do something about


adapting the common fisheries policy. I hope that in his reply the Minister can proceed a few paces further on these issues.
The immediate priorities for the industry must surely be the safeguarding of stocks and the safeguarding of the fleet to catch those stocks. The safeguarding of the stocks involves such measures as banning the industrial fishing of species which can and should be fished only for human consumption and not for industrial purposes, by ensuring that we get a 200-mile exclusive economic zone, by ensuring that if there is unilateral action by any other country we are not left behind, and by regulating the catching of threatened species.
We must safeguard the fleet by looking again at the fuel cost subsidy. I am quite sure that the Minister has no figures which would undermine the case for continuing the subsidy for a period. I suspect that he is aware of the need to continue the subsidy, and I hope that he has been impressed by the number of hon. Members who have stressed the difficulties of the owners of small vessels and of the shell fishermen. I do not believe that the situation and the evidence available to the Minister have changed. I believe, and I hope, that he is involved in persuading his Cabinet colleagues how serious the situation is and how badly needed is this public expenditure. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is successful in impressing upon the rest of the Government the needs of the fishing industry. This is no time to put a precipitate end to the subsidy.
No one wants the fishing industry permanently propped up by an external subsidy. That is the last demand any fisherman would make. Fishermen are naturally independent people who do not want to live their lives on a subsidy, but they must have some indication of the structure the Government have in mind for the industry. It cannot be restructured on the basis of a stampede to lay up vessels resulting from the serious economic situation.
The Minister will have seen demands for a fleet-scrapping subsidy. Sections of the fishing community are asking for help to get out. They want to know how

they can reduce their capacity quickly without bankrupting themselves or the concerns in which they are involved. We need from the Government an indication of the shape of the future fishing fleet, rather than an assumption that we can take away the assistance now being given and rely on the fierce market forces now operating to cut down the fleet.
It cannot be the case that the kind of collapse which is going on in some sections of the fishing community is what the Government seek. I assume that they have a clear view of what they believe the future fishing fleet should be, and I hope that they will give us some inkling of their views. It is no good supposing that the product of the present market forces would be a sensible future fishing fleet. All of us who represent fishing constituencies know that it would not be. We should like from the Government a clear indication of what the future fishing fleet should be and how they are prepared to see the fleet go through the present situation and reach that point, rather than go headlong into precipitate collapse.
I said that no section of the industry would want permanently to be propped up by a subsidy. Therefore, I particularly draw the attention of the Minister to the attempts of the industry to help itself and organise itself for the future. In this there is no more important element than the producer organisations. The Minister has said on a number of occasions that the inshore section of the industry in particular could be very much better orgainsed than it is. I think that he would value better and more effective communications with that section of the industry. He would like to see it organised on a sounder footing. The basis for that exists in the developing producer organisations.
I have in my constituency the headquarters of the Anglo-Scottish Fish Producers' Organisation. I hope to have from the Ministry and the Scottish Office a clearer indication of a readiness to support and develop the self-help activities of the producer organisations than there has been so far. We are bound to be worried by the fact that the Ministry did not want to see the Anglo-Scottish Fish Producers' Organisation participating in the working group on the


white fish quotas when it met in March this year, and refused to have a delegate or representative from it at that meeting.
The producer organisations are entitled to ask for Government action to help them with the problem of the compensation payments that they make. The present arrangements under which the producer organisations try to pay the compensation for withdrawal quickly, so as to ensure the continuity of operation of the scheme and to discourage fishermen from pulling out, impose a heavy burden on them, or mean their having to obtain a bank loan with security, because the repayments from European funds take such a long time to come through. Other countries have been able to help by making bond arrangements, which relieve the producer organisations of the heavy overdraft payments involved. There seems to be no reason why the British Government should not consider help in this aspect of the self-help which the fishing community is trying to carry out.
Another problem affecting the producer organisations is that if the system of maintaining a reasonable return for fishermen is to work they must be able to come to some arrangement to enable them to operate outside their own areas. The nature of the fishing industry is such that landings take place at different ports. Some of those ports are outside the home area of any one fish producers' organisation. This presents serious problems. Whereas it was assumed at first—and all the indications from European Community organisations suggested this—that the producers' organisations could operate outwith their own immediate areas, the Ministry and the Scottish Office seem to be taking a very different view
My local fish producers' organisation points out that as of tomorrow
a fleet will congregate at North Shields for the summer herring season. As the supply of herring is so small, rigorous rules for landing and marketing must be applied. We can certainly control our boats but 50 per cent. of the landings may be by Moray Firth boats. These cannot be controlled by us as they are not our members. They cannot now be controlled by the Scottish Fishermen's Organisation as they will be landing out of the SFO 'economic area'. The whole system of rules is therefore liable to break down.
I ask the Minister to look at the situation carefully.
The fishing industry, with Government encouragement, is trying to help itself. In the very nature of fishing, if every landing which takes place outside a home area is outwith the scheme the whole system will break down and another attempt at self-help will go by the board.
Overhanging the thinking of practically every hon. Member who has taken part in the debate have been the recent discussions of the North Atlantic Group on the question of herring. Little more needs to be said, except to echo the feeling of concern at the existence of quotas for industrial fishing by countries such as Denmark, and the apparent unwillingness of those countries to work within the obvious need to produce edible fish primarily for human consumption when stocks are endangered. We welcome the Minister's statement that he is prepared to continue diplomatic pressure. This is an issue on which the full range of our diplomatic resources needs to be applied.
The concern we have in our area about the Seahouses-Longstone herring fishery is strengthened in this situation. We shall be very worried if non-traditional fishermen move into that area simply because they are no longer able to work elsewhere.
The hon. Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) expressed great concern about the future of the common fisheries policy, and professed to express great concern about the inshore fishing fleet. But it was his Government who failed to negotiate a 12-mile limit along that very stretch of coastline, and left North Northumberland with only a six-mile limit. I wish that concern for the inshore industry had been present a little earlier.
I turn to two matters of particular concern to the inshore industry. The first is lobster stocks and the Edwards Report, a matter that the Minister has under consideration. I hope that he will treat it as a matter of urgency. Lobsters are another species endangered by commercial exploitation.
I hope that the Minister will realise that it may be necessary to apply different solutions in different areas, and that certainly in an area such as Northumberland it will be necessary to confine the landing of lobsters to bona fide fishermen in registered vessels. Some of the statements that have emanated from the Department and elsewhere have been


rather worrying. The Northumberland Sea Fisheries Committee wrote in a recent letter:
The Ministry were quite adamant that the licensing of lobster fishermen would not be countenanced.
The committee may not be an authority on the Ministry's thinking, but such tales are going abroad, and fishermen in Northumberland are very concerned to see that the regulation of lobster fishing is properly carried out, and that the landing of lobsters is confined to those who are doing a proper fishing job and are earning a living by fishing. We cannot afford a free-for-all with that species any more than with others.
I should also like the Minister to examine the problem of the landing of crabs, which is becoming increasingly serious. The need for the inquiry on fish marketing, which took so long to set up and for which we asked over such a long period, is clearly illustrated in this case. Fishermen in my constituency landing crab receive 70p-80p a stone. Even in the local shops—and the situation is much worse in London—customers are paying more than 70p each for crabs; the process of boiling, transporting, marketing and so on cannot require that amount of profit. In some parts of the country it is difficult to obtain crabs at all.
Something very peculiar is going on in crab marketing. It is extremely trying to the fishing community, for whom crabs are an important part of the work, to find that they are restricted to one or two days' fishing a week because the only outlets to which they can go are imposing very restricting quotas on them. This point was borne in on the Minister of State when he visited the Northumberland coast recently. I hope that he has not forgotten what he learnt then, and that the Ministry is looking closely at the problem.
I hope that the Minister will persuade his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to move more quickly on the issue of seals. It is ludicrous that we should be arguing about conservation of stocks when between 8,000 cwt. and 14,000 cwt. of fish are being consumed each week by a seal colony which all the naturalists and conservationists agree is too large for its own good. It requires serious action on

the lines of the cull carried out some years ago, when the job was not finished. Everyone concerned recognises that we need action soon.
To sum up, we need a national fisheries policy to cover all the species which are fished commercially, to take into account the needs of each area in which fishing is carried out, and to resolve some of the difficulties arising between sections of the industry.
These questions also need to be resolved within the new EEC fisheries policy. If there was ever a case for renegotiation, it was the common fisheries policy. In the whole renegotiation exercise many things which could have been achieved perfectly well within the Community, without any great song and dance, were dealt with under the title of "renegotiation". The one issue on which the EEC was almost totally wrong, the fisheries policy, was the one which was not brought under the umbrella of renegotiation. I agree that something was done at the last minute as a result of the right hon. Gentleman's efforts, but it was at the last minute and did not go anywhere near as far as is required.
All these things must be done within a new framework of an international fishing policy, which puts an end to the grossly irresponsible and cavalier fishing of species on which we depend for future food supplies. The fishing industry of this country wants to hear from this debate that both the Government and Parliament are dedicated to these ends.

5.1 p.m.

Sir John Gilmour: The fact that the Minister has been unable to say whether any help can be given to the fishing industry will, I know be very disturbing to everyone concerned with the industry, particularly because we have had the experience of the horticulture industry, where help was given and was cut off and not continued in any way at all.
I should like to remind the Minister that, quite apart from the difficulties with costs and other matters which the fishing industry was experiencing in February when the Minister introduced the scheme, there has been a still further increase in the cost of gear, and in the rentals of electronic equipment which come up for five-yearly renewal. There are also the increasing annual insurance premiums on


vessels, so that, quite apart from the high costs back in February, these costs have been building up all the time.
The Minister also spoke of the differential in price between what is received on the quayside and what is paid by the housewife. I made inquiries in my own constituency, in Pittenweem, this weekend, where haddock is the main species landed. A 7-stone box of haddock makes on average about £7·50 per box, and out of that is produced 38 lb of fillets. The 38 lb of fillets, when sold, make between 50p and 60p per lb. This means that the housewife's price, £7·50 per box having been the price at the quayside, goes up to between £19 and £23.
Whatever we may say about asking for a continuation of subsidy, I find that everyone in the fishing industry is agreed that subsidies should not be built in as a permanent feature of support for the industry. But, without subsidies, how else are people to get the money? The only way is by increasing the price on the quayside. Surely this is a matter that must be given top priority.
There is also the question whether help should be given to prawn fishermen. They are at the moment excluded from any schemes of help. Many people think that prawn fishing is done only by small boats. In my constituency we have boats up to 50 ft. and 60 ft. in length involved in prawn fishing. If it is not possible for them to go on doing this they in turn will be forced into fishing for some other species, increasing the pressure already there, so would it not be wise to try to give this help to prawn fishermen?
The Anglo-Scottish Fish Producers' Association, in recommendations which many Members will have received today, suggests that there should be a minimum size for prawns to make certain that prawn stocks are not over-fished, resulting in permanent harm and damage to a very valuable fish which ought to be preserved.
I hope the Government will take practical steps to consider the renewal of the subsidy. In doing this it might be worthwhile for them to look at some of the anomalies that have come up in the past six months. Might not it be better in some ways to relate the subsidy to the horsepower of the vessel rather than its overall length? I feel that vessels of

about 40 ft. should also be brought into consideration, because the one point the Minister has made on many occasions is that he wishes to have a unified fishing industry speaking to him. If we are to have a unified fishing industry, surely all fishermen must receive the help and aid which the Government give, and there should not be a cut-off line at an arbitrary length.
A great deal is said now in all fishing debates of every sort about the Law of the Sea Conference, but I cannot help feeling that we should not expect too much from it in the immediate future. This conference, I believe, has been adjourned until next March in New York. I doubt very much whether concrete agreements will come out in March-April of next year. The conference will go on until the year after. Even if some agreement were to be reached, it would probably be at least two or three years after that before all the countries ratified it, so that, when talking of the results of this conference, one is talking in terms of anything up to five and six years ahead.
We need to do something particularly concerning the North Atlantic area and the North Sea. If some interim agreement could be reached, would this not be an impetus to getting something agreed by the Law of the Sea Conference? I think it would help if something concrete could be seen to emerge from the areas for which we have responsibilities.
Hon. Members have mentioned the need to renegotiate the Common Market fisheries policy. This may be so, but many of the fishermen to whom I have spoken say that the greatest dangers—apart from some trouble with industrial fishing, which hon. Members have already mentioned—come from the non-EEC countries. This is what they feel is the danger in the North Sea area and the North Atlantic.
With this in mind there is urgent need to get something done on an area basis as an example to the rest of the world. If we could do this we should be taking a positive step to help the industry. This would be very much better in many ways than a financial subsidy. It is the action of convening a conference and getting people to sit down and solve our difficulties that the fishing industry feels we need at the present time.

5.7 p.m.

Mr. James Johnson: Although I am apparently the only Member on the Government benches I do not intend to take 16 times as long as any Member on the other side, who number 16.
This is a very vital debate. It is more than merely important: it is vital. It is not a post mortem. It is not even an autopsy. I have enormous faith in our people in the ports, as all hon. Members must have. Although the Minister is not here for the moment, I want to ask him in his absence: does he wish to have a healthy and viable industry? The answer is obviously in the affirmative. We all do. What is he going to do about it? That is the question I ask in his absence.
In the last debate some weeks ago, having heard the howls of anguish that issued from the BTF, I said that we had heard all this before. We thought that it might be crying "Wolf". Although I have said this often before, I do not think I was correct then.
I have in my constituency the biggest deep-sea fleet west of Murmansk; and I have been down at the dock lately and talked to quite a few people—not merely owners but skippers and all grades through to deckie learners. If hon. Members were to take a walk in West Hull on a nice Saturday morning, as I did last week, they would see ship after ship laid up in St. Andrew's Dock. The trawlers are there, and, in my view, they will not come out again. Although the vessel owners have made millions in the past—particularly in the last few years since the Labour Government of 1966–70, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Anglesey (Mr. Hughes) was the Minister, when they were given their sliding-scale subsidy scheme—there is no doubt whatsoever that at this moment they are not making millions. There is no doubt that Associated Fisheries and many other firms are losing quite a lot of money.
The only part of the Fishing News report about this with which I quibble is the statement that
At the time the A.F. results were being announced, the British Trawlers' Federation was circulating fishing port MPs with the message that the industry is bleeding to death.
The article went on to say that few of us seemed to be noticing or caring. That is nonsense, of course. I know that I can

say on behalf of my absent colleagues that no hon. Member who represents a fishing port does not feel that people who fish in the dangerous conditions of the Arctic are not the most intrepid of men. If we did not stand up for them, we would not be in this Chamber today.
Owners face huge costs in fuel charges, inflation, dearer gear, higher wages and the like. As a result, half the wet fishers and side-winders in Hull will not sail again. If fewer boats go to sea, fewer fish are caught. If fewer fish are landed, there will be fewer men employed in catching and landing fish. Already we see rising unemployment in the fishing industry, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara) said earlier. This affects not only deckhands but dockers as well. Hull owners are obliged to make men redundant, and numbers have been voluntarily agreed. Representatives of my union, the General and Municipal Workers, have met the owners, and we have scaled down the original figure of 82 redundancies to 32, which is quite an achievement.
Having said that, however, it is extremely important that the men who catch fish have security. Even if, unfortunately, some have to lose their jobs, like many other workers in different walks of life, it is extremely important that those who stay have security. Both those who catch fish and those who land it are not in the national dock labour scheme. Men who are now in their fifties will soon finish. They will get nothing like a golden handshake and nothing like the redundancy payments looked forward to by men who work on the commercial dock alongside them. This applies to both those who go to sea and those who land fish. It is very important that we have improved working conditions—and that these men are not only paid better wages but are also given de-casualisation. They have to be given guaranteed jobs with firms. More important, after a career lasting 35 or 40 years, bearing in mind that a boy can go to the Arctic at the age of 15—it used to be 14—they deserve fair treatment at the end of their years at sea.
In the light of all this, does my hon. Friend the Minister of State accept the figures of the BTF? If he does, what does he intend to do about them? We


heard today that a decision would be made as soon as possible. I would have preferred my Government to say "at the earliest possible moment". We cannot wait until the end of July. It is important in the next few days that the mandarins lurking behind the doors of the Treasury and allocating money for other departments should make up their minds. These men who go to the Arctic and other waters cannot wait too long. It is essential that the waiting period is as short as possible.
We are debating this issue at the 12th hour. I gather that at 12 o'clock tonight the £6·25 million subsidy is to finish, and down will go the shutters.
Another matter touched upon earlier was the fact that the United Kingdom has not merely magnificent men but a magnificent fleet. We have the biggest and best fleet in the EEC. As a result, our bargaining position is strong. What is happening about the common fisheries policy? Fishing has never been a party issue, and there is deep dismay in all parts of the House about the existing set-up in the EEC. That applies especially north of the Tweed.
We have had the Law of the Sea Conference, which settled nothing. But the consensus, not merely among BTF members but among people in Scotland and other areas, is that we shall move towards an exclusive economic zone of 200 miles. There is no doubt about this. I find the trawler owners in my constituency as adamant about this as anyone in Chile, Senegal, Canada or Iceland. It is bound to come. If it comes inside the CFP, where we are committed to no discrimination amongst the nine partners, what do we do?
Earlier in the debate, I asked the hon. Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) about this matter. I hope that, like me, he wants an immediate 11 miles at Dover or Folkestone, possibly 50 miles at Lowestoft and 150 miles at Hull, Aberdeen and so forth. If we have that, what happens on our side of the median? Not only our old neighbours like Norway and Iceland but now the Communist States are fishing off Scotland, Yorkshire and Northumberland, so it is vitally important that we barter or have "swops" with the Norwegians and the Icelanders. There is no doubt that we shall still catch fish off Norway and Iceland; even

if they advance limits not 50 but 200 miles. If we are allowed to catch 100,000 tons off Norway and Iceland, by the same argument we should allow the Norwegians and Icelanders to catch herring, mackerel and the like off our shores.
I want to see a halt called to the immoral behaviour of EEC nations like Denmark, with industrial fishing, and France. The French are completely amoral—they may be immoral as well—and they poach outside our southern Channel ports.
Besides fighting for the median, we have also, as partners in the common fisheries policy, to stand up for better conditions for our fishermen. This is not impossible. We have heard the Minister say that his Common Market colleagues are sympathetic. Even more important, Mr. Lardinois has been laying down the law—at least, I understand he has. If the Minister does not do so, there is no future in the common fisheries policy, bearing in mind that it was originally shaped for six partners and not to suit the Irish, the Danes and ourselves.
This is so important. Everything is on our side—logic, history, decency, morality and equity. Now we need tough Ministers who will fight inside the CFP.
I turn now to the question of industrial relations, which have been notoriously bad in the fishing industry. This is shown in the feeling between owners and men, certainly in the deep-sea and distant-water fleet in Hull, and I am sure that the same applies also in Fleetwood and in Grimsby and Aberdeen. The employers have been a law unto themselves. But if they are now asking for £6 million or more of taxpayers' money for the second half of the year—and I hope they will get it, as they should—they must offer a quid pro quo and behave slightly better towards their employees and accept decasualisation in the industry.
Even more important is the question of giving workers on the docks and elsewhere a decent emolument or "handshake", as we term it, when they leave. That is certainly not happening now. I took my General and Municipal Workers' Union deputation to the Department of Employment last week. In Hull we were deadlocked on the issue since the employers are making bobbers redundant,


and are not giving them anything additional for severence payment.
I have asked the vessel owners about this matter. Some were willing to chip in to a kitty in order to give the men a little extra money when they are finishing their work, but the majority will not. For example, British United Trawlers might put in £40,000 for its fleet, but there are smaller owners like Mike Burton, of Newington Trawlers, who has four boats. If the fleet is to keep going to sea, and if we are to vote subsidy for the industry, it is vitally important to get better relations between owners and the men on the dockside.
My right hon. Friend referred to the all-party committee on the fishing industry, of which I am chairman. More important, he is a unique Minister. He is doing something that No. 10 Downing Street has stopped doing. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is the only Department whose Minister and his colleagues, together with the Minister of State, Scottish Office, comes along to such a committee with his Civil Service advisers and answers any questions that members of that committee may put. Nothing is barred. He and his colleagues do their best to answer. No other Department attempts such an exercise.
My right hon. Friend hinted today that one of his first tasks after the debate is to meet our all-party committee and stand up to a volley of questions. I can tell him some of them now. What is happening about the limits? What does he intend to do next time he sees Mr. Lardinois and company? If he can get the necessary assurances from these gentlemen on behalf of our industry, we might get somewhere given hard work and toughness from our Ministers who go to Luxembourg or Strasbourg or any other "bourg".

5.24 p.m.

Mr. Patrick Wall: In such a short debate, and with so many hon. Members wanting to speak, it is essential to stick to the basic objective, of the debate. This is a Supply Day, and it is no secret that we had intended it to push the Minister into making an announcement about an operation subsidy. In that, we have failed. But, as a Member for a fishing port, I pay tribute

to the right hon. Gentleman. He is approachable and he visits the fishing ports frequently. His summary today of the problems of the industry was excellent. There is no question of his ability. We question his strength. Is he strong enough to stand up to the Treasury? If he is not we shall not have a fishing industry.
My hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling), who so ably opened the debate, spoke about a Hull trawler and the losses she has made on a voyage. I would refer to a Grimsby trawler which recently returned to port having grossed £28,000, a good-to-average receipt. But the fuel bills were £27,000, and on top of that were the wages, costs and so on. That trawler has been taken off the active list and may well be scrapped.
I appreciate that the Government, as a point of principle, do not want a fuel subsidy for the fishing industry, since every other industry would want it as well. Hence the temporary operating subsidy, which ends today. I take it that every vessel which has been in receipt of a subsidy and sails tomorrow will receive no subsidy as from then. This must surely mean that many vessels will not continue sailing.
The EEC has extended permission for member States to give subsidies up to January next year. Norway is giving £45 million. But we are giving our market to foreigners as well as our fishing. Already, 93,000 tons of catching capacity, or 14 per cent. of our demersal fish production, has been lost. That means an import bill of £100 million in substitution. There are huge stocks of frozen cod in Iceland and Norway and as has been pointed out, the American market is now taking stocks of Alaskan pollack.
The result of all this is that two British trawlers a week are being taken out of service. Last year 78 distant-water vessels were taken out of service, 42 have gone out of service already this year, and there is the possibility of another 50 going the same way unless something is done immediately. There are virtually no orders for new building; all that is in hand is completion of ships already under construction. As a result, 1,000 people on the production side of the industry have been made redundant.


together with about 100 from the managerial ranks. Crews are losing their jobs, and those who remain are, naturally, because of inflation, asking for more pay. It is the usual vicious circle, which is making things even more difficult for the companies. Associated Fisheries lost £4½ million on its trawler operations in half a year, and no company can stand that sort of loss for long. In Hull 58 bobbers are to be made redundant, and unemployment has doubled in the last year.

Mr. James Johnson: I hope the statement will not go unchallenged that Associated Fisheries has lost £4½ million in fishing alone. Would the hon. Gentleman care to check that figure?

Mr. Wall: I understand that to be the figure. It was stated in the Press that it was on the trawling operations. It is a very large sum.
The operating subsidy has been with us since the day of the Fleck Report, which is quite a long time ago. It was introduced because we were losing fishing grounds because of extended limits. The original scheme was phased out by the Conservative Government and the present Government brought in the temporary subsidy, which ends today. Last Thursday, when I asked about the continuation of the subsidy, the Minister told me that it would not be helpful to make a statement at this stage. That was a rather unfortunate expression. It is most unhelpful that a statement has not been made, because the situation is so serious. There must be a statement in the very near future if our fishing fleet is to survive. If the Government want a fishing industry, they must do something about it. We do not blame the right hon. Gentleman; he is doing his best. But he should point out to the Treasury that the balance is £100 million in the cost of imports as against £6¼ million in subsidy. There is no stronger case for a temporary subsidy than that advanced on both sides of the House today.
I now turn to the question of boats. Despite the Law of the Sea Conference, there is going to be pressure for unilateral action. Iceland says that her limits will be extended in November, and there is the possibility of other, larger, countries following suit. I agree that such a situa-

tion would be unfortunate because we should then have chaos and anarchy on the high seas, which would not be of benefit to anybody, particularly a great fishing and trading nation such as ours. I understand that Icelandic representatives were here in the last few days to discuss the problem. What was the result?
The right hon. Gentleman said that he wants to negotiate a new agreement with Iceland when the present one ends in November. It is important for us to know how far negotiations have gone. Such negotiations take time, and if they have already begun that is a good start, because we remember what happened on the last two occasions. We do not want another cod war. That is the last thing that either we or, indeed, Iceland want.
However, I believe that international pressure will not stand any further delay of the Law of the Sea Conference beyond next summer. The pressure for a 200-mile EEZ will then become absolutely irresistible. As has already been said, when we extended our limit to 12 miles we did so after everyone else, we had been talking about it for years and indeed, I had raised the matter here on many occasions, but we were still the last nation to extend our limits.
I hope that when we are allowed to do so under international law the Minister will be fully prepared to extend our limits. Those limits must be protected. It is useless having a 200-mile limit around our coast if we cannot protect it. Protection of oil rigs, anti-pollution and air sea rescue should all be brought together within one composite force. We want not only the vessels which have been provided for the protection of oil rigs but vessels equipped with helicopters so that we can catch poachers quickly. We also want one or two fast patrol boals, which would be of use to the Navy in time of war.
I agree that we do not want to take unilateral action and we hope that others will not do so, but are the Government making adequate provision for extending our limits if we are allowed to do so next summer? Are they providing shipping, aircraft or helicopters to protect the new limits?
I turn now to the fish themselves. The Law of the Sea Conference is designed


to protect fish stocks. I am in possession of all kinds of evidence which I cannot read to the House because there is no time. That evidence is from fishermen and especially those in the South Coast constituencies who have gone to Belgium and France and looked at the fish markets and fish quays and seen immature fish for sale. We must do something about this. There is an international law, but we must do more to ensure that it is enforced by other countries. We enforce it scrupulously, and it is time that our partners in the EEC followed suit, because at present it is unfair and causes strong feeling in the fishing industry.
I support those who are pleased that the North-East Atlantic Sea Fisheries Commission is banning industrial fishing for herring. I hope that this will eventually be extended to other forms of fish. It is an extremely wasteful form of fishing. Fish meal is obtained from offal and so on. To fish for edible fish and use it in fish meal is an awful waste of world resources.
I turn finally to prices. A housewife who pays 80p to £1·20 for sole begins to wonder what all the fuss is about and why the trawlermen are making a loss if she has to pay such a price. She forgets that the Sussex fisherman who caught that sole is getting only 28p a pound. We need the Prices Commission to which the Minister has referred. I hope that when he winds up the debate he will be able to say that we shall get action and an interim report on this matter soon. We cannot wait too long. I realise that it is a very complicated investigation, but it is a matter of extreme importance to the housewife as well as to the industry.
To sum up, I suggest that the immediate problem of the fishing industry is fuel costs. The future problems will be those of conservation and limits. Therefore, the industry will be in a difficult situation for some years to come.
Hon. Members on both sides of the House firmly believe that Britain needs a fishing industry. Our fishermen lead tough and dangerous lives. They want our help, and they will get it, leaving party politics aside, from both sides of the House. Party politics does, I am glad to say, not come into this matter. We agree that the first and foremost require-

ment is a decision from the Government about an operating subsidy at the earliest possible moment.

5.34 p.m.

Mr. Hamish Watt: There have been very few occasions in the House when the Scottish National Party has been grateful to the Opposition, but we are grateful to them this afternoon, for having given us the opportunity of using this Supply Day to debate the problems of the fishing industry.
It must be placed on record that my party has been pleading with the Opposition for the allocation of a day, for months now, in order to debate this subject. As was pointed out to the House in the Consolidated Fund Bill debate in January there has been a great deal going on in the fishing industry over the past two years. It is not mere coincidence that seven of the 11 Scottish National Party Members of Parliament sit for fishing constituencies. It has been obvious to us in Scotland that the fishing communities have been greatly concerned about what has been going wrong. In the meantime matters have been going from bad to worse.
Throughout the 16 months that my colleagues and I have been in Parliament we have tried to use every parliamentary method to get action from the Government. There is not one member of the Government Front Bench who has not felt the lash of our tongues on this matter, and yet throughout all that time they have chosen to do nothing. At Question Time, during business questions, and in every other way we have sought to get action to save the industry, and it has all been to no avail.
At the same time fishermen in every port in Scotland have had meeting after meeting voicing their frustration at the continuing inactivity of the Government and of the Civil Service alike. Their frustration culminated, as we all know in their outstandingly successful blockade in April.

Mr. Peart: The hon. Gentleman may disagree with the action that was taken about the operating subsidy, but it was welcomed by the industry. He may disagree about reference prices over a wider range of frozen fish, but that was agreed to by the industry. I believe that this


action was useful. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, whose views I always respect and listen to very carefully, will be sensible in his approach.

Mr. Watt: This action was taken, and was welcomed at the time, but it was obviously too little and too late. As we have heard today, the subsidy is not to continue. Therefore what possible good can the interim subsidy have been to the industry?
I was saying that the fishermen's frustration culminated in their outstandingly successful blockade in April, when virtually every port in Britain was brought to a standstill. In that blockade the fishermen of Britain showed the country just what reasonable people they were. They never sought to hinder any emergency case, nor did they keep the blockade for one moment longer than they believed it to be necessary. When their case had been heard they thought that their legitimate needs would be met. After only four days they lifted their blockade as swiftly and as efficiently as they had brought it into being.
The fishermen, by their action that week, won the admiration of virtually the whole nation. They demonstrated once again that they had not lost any of the disciplines or the skills of seamanship that were so necessary to our country during the last two wars. It was they, and their like, who kept the lifelines of this nation open when all else had failed us. What kind of thanks have they had in the past few months and what kind of recognition have they had as their reward?
Fishing is an unbelievably complicated industry. Although the Government Front Bench tonight has strength, it does not have the breadth that would be required fully to represent these complications. The fishermen have seen their industry sink to a level worse than it was in the 1930s. I am assured of that fact by all the fishermen in my constituency. In Banffshire there are more than 30 boats tied up at present—boats which cannot make ends meet and boats for which there are no buyers. Each weekend men come to me with desperate tax problems. They are being asked to pay tax on money they earned either last year or in previous years, but now they have no money to pay it with. They have no

money to keep their families, let alone to pay tax.
I know that many hon. Members will say that they should have saved money from the good years to pay the tax demands that they knew would be coming. They did save this money. Many of them saved enough, or what they believed was enough and to spare, to meet this tax and any other emergency that arose. However, they had no idea that their industry would sink to the present low level, where week after week they have had to use their savings and they have seen them disappear at a rate which they would never have believed when they were putting them by. They go to sea and come back with little or no fish, and what fish they do bring back meets a market that has very low prices or that is totally glutted.
Unlike virtually any other industry, the fishing industry cannot cut its input costs. It is not like a factory which can run at 40 per cent., 50 per cent., or 60 per cent. of capacity. A boat either goes to sea to fish or stays tied up.
I am aware that most hon. Members do not care about the fishing industry. Indeed, many hon. Members do not know about it. Attendance in the House this afternoon is indicative of that fact. Hon. Members have no sympathy for anyone who has income tax problems. However, I should point out that practically every man who goes to sea is a share fisherman. Every man in my constituency who goes to sea is vitally involved in the profits or losses that his boat makes. Fishermen get no wages as such. They do not pay PAYE. That is not their choice. I have often asked the Treasury to change the system, but it just will not listen. That is another problem of the fishing industry. But where are the men from the Treasury today?
I turn now to another problem which is staring our fishermen in the face today. I refer to the Board of Trade surveys, which I understand are due to start tomorrow, 1st July. Everyone in this House is interested in safety at sea. So are our fishermen. After all, their lives are at stake. Therefore, they are interested in safety at sea. But when they are about to have rules and regulations imposed upon them in blanket fashion, which will deprive them of any hope of earning their


livelihoods, naturally they are annoyed and up in arms.
Many boats which never go out of sight of land and are always within an hour's sailing from their home ports now have to meet the same standard of safety as boats which go deep-sea fishing. I know that the Board of Trade is proceeding with stealth in this matter, picking off the boats and their crews one by one. It starts, first, with boats built pre-1948. I know that it will take its time in progressing to boats built at the present day, but it will get them all just the same. Every boat will probably find that it has to meet a survey fee of up to £3,000. Goodness knows how many more thousands of pounds it will cost to get boats up to these unnecessarily stringent standards which are due to be imposed by the Board of Trade inspectors.
The position is very serious. I could take hon. Members to a fishing port in the constituency of the hon. Member for North Angus and Mearns (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) where not one of the boats has any hope of passing any of the stringent regulations. Therefore, they are all likely to be scrapped.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: The hon. Gentleman simply does not know the situation. That is not true.

Mr. Watt: I assure the hon. Gentleman that I have recently spoken to fishermen in his constituency who work from that port and they are extremely worried.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Which port?

Mr. Watt: The fishing port of Gordon.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I have been in that port and met the fishermen far more recently than the hon. Gentleman. I know that individual fishermen have problems. However, I beg the hon. Gentleman to get the matter into perspective and not to use exaggerated phrases which imply that no boat can possibly comply with the regulations. It is not true.

Mr. Watt: I shall be delighted to hear from the hon. Gentleman in due time which boats in that port will be fit to pass the survey.
The boats of the fishing fleet of which I speak normally carry crews of four up

to a maximum of eight. Comparing that with a shop, factory or workshop, what do we find? Naturally, the owner has to spend money to bring his property up to a certain standard of safety, but workshops, factories or shops do not have to pay a survey fee. Even the owner of a bus, which might carry 40 or 50 passengers, has to pay only a tiny survey fee compared with the fantastically high fee that the fishermen are due to meet. So how about a little charity? I thought that we were debating the problems of the fishing industry. Here is a problem which is directly attributable to the Department of Trade. Where are the representatives of that Department?
If this country genuinely cares for the future of its fishing industry, it must recognise its present plight with imposed quotas and low prices and take steps to eliminate them.
First, we must recognise the difficulty created by severe cuts in fishing quotas. All fishermen agree that there must be severe cuts. They also agree that there is a need for contraction of the industry. I plead with the Minister to initiate a scrapping subsidy which will allow the owners of older boats to take them out of service. That will also allow some of the older men to come ashore a year or two earlier than they would normally do. After all, the Government are not liable for redundancy payments to these fishermen. Therefore, this would save money. They will not lightly be called on to produce training grants, so again that will save money.
The Government must either abolish or greatly reduce these survey fees and extend a degree of charity to this industry. They must also instruct the surveyors to use their utmost discretion and understanding in the early stages, especially while the industry is going through such a lean time.
I believe that most of the problems of the fishing industry could have been avoided if it had had a proper marketing organisation similar to the dairy farmers, who have the Milk Marketing Board. Why have fishermen not got such an organisation? The fault lies not with the fishermen but with the courts, which have issued an injunction on the industry. There is a case against the industry in the Restrictive Practices Court which prevents it taking any action to set up a


producers' organisation. That is the situation in North-East Scotland, anyway. So why are the Law Officers absent from the Government Front Bench? I thought that we were debating the problems of the fishing industry. I mentioned earlier that it was a fragmented industry.
I turn now to the problems facing the industry due to oil-related debris. Many hon. Members representing fishing constituencies know of the problems facing fishermen when trying to get compensation from the oil companies for damage which has been done to their gear. So, far little or nothing has been done. However, I was pleased to learn from a Written Answer last week that at long last a compensation fund is to be or has been set up. But there is no one from the Department of Industry on the Government Front Bench to deal with these complicated problems.
I turn now to the Foreign Office. There is an urgent need to extend our fishing limit to 200 miles and to ensure that within that limit we have an exclusive fishing zone of 50 miles for our own fishermen.
Turning to those who should be negotiating for us on the common fisheries policy, many people will say that we are not in a position to patrol or to police the 50-miles, let alone the 200-miles, limit. I suggest that each British fisherman who goes to sea will be a policeman and that every fishing boat will be like a police car ensuring that the foreigner does not get into our waters.
I know from experience that our fishermen are vitally interested in conservation. They appreciate the urgency of a conservation policy and are greatly concerned to keep out the people who are causing most deprivation—the Norwegians and the Russians. Now that we have landed in the EEC—it appears for keeps—we have the greatest pirate of all as one of our partners—Denmark. I could go on and quote facts and figures. I could show graphs and also maps.

Mr. Russell Fairgrieve: I compliment the hon. Gentleman on the brief that his party has prepared for him, but may I ask him to comment on the fact that the three nations indulging in the largest amount of industrial fishing are Norway, Russia and Poland,

none of which is a member of the Common Market?

Mr. Watt: I invite the hon. Gentleman to study the table which I have here, which shows that Denmark caught 31·2 per cent. of all the fish caught in the North Sea last year, Norway caught 25 per cent., while the United Kingdom caught 12·4 per cent. Will the hon. Gentleman please get his facts right before he seeks to intervene again?
I am disappointed that the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. Wilson) is not present. Together he and I might have pored over maps and agreed or disagreed about which nations were guilty or not guilty of industrial fishing, because in the past there appears to have been some doubt in his mind. There is no doubt in my mind about which nations are doing the most damage.
I said that the fishing industry is complex and fragmented, and I hope that have been able to illustrate precisely what I mean. I hope, too, that all these organisations and bodies will get together and work out a sensible fishing policy, one which will give our constituents some sort of future.
The main reason why so many fishing constituencies in Scotland elected us as Members is that they know that no Scottish Government, of whatever colour, would neglect the fishing industry in the way that this House has done in the past. In a Scottish context the fishing industry would assume much greater importance than it has in a United Kingdom context. Fishermen are aware that this House has many problems facing it, and they do not want to rock the boat. They are responsible people who ask only for the right to play their full part in helping the country's economy. But they know that for the fishing industry to survive action must be taken within the next few weeks—perhaps six at the most.
I hardly like to say this. I bear the hon. Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Brown) no ill-will. In fact, I like him as a person. I know that in some of his portfolios he has done an excellent job, but when it comes to the fishing industry his action, or inaction, has shown that he has little or no understanding of the problems facing the industry. When one thinks of the promises that he made to


the fishermen in Aberdeen at the time of the blockade and matches them against his inaction since, surely his own conscience should tell him what to do. Can he honestly say that he and his team did their best when they negotiated North Sea herring quotas and got the United Kingdom a miserable 6 per cent. of the total of the North-East Atlantic catch?
I do not claim that the fault lies entirely with the hon. Gentleman. Indeed, I hope I have indicated that much of the fault lies elsewhere. Nevertheless, he has responsibility for the fishing industry of Scotland in his hands, and it is under his stewardship that the industry has reached its present depressing state. To him would go the credit if things were going well, so to him also must go the blame for the present sad situation. I am sure that nobody in this House wants to be in the obituary business, but we shall be unless action is taken now.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I remind the House that eight hon. Members want to catch my eye in 35 minutes.

5.55 p.m.

Mr. Walter Clegg: The hon. Member for Banff (Mr. Watt) has just delivered himself of an inaccurate and, I think, irresponsible speech. It is the height of irresponsibility to praise a blockade that was illegal. I am president of my inshore fishermen's association. I condemned the blockade at the time, and that is what Parliament should do. To pretend that the Scottish National Party is the only one interested in the fishing industry is irresponsible. I must tell the hon. Gentleman that his predecessor made better speeches on this subject than he has ever done.

Mr. Watt: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Clegg: No.
I am glad to see the Minister of Agriculture back after his shake-up in the train accident. I often use that line, and I hope that nothing similar ever happens to me.
All that we have had from the right hon. Gentleman today is Peart and sympathy, and that is not enough. The head-

line in the Fleetwood Chronicle last weekend was
If subsidy is discontinued 'trawlers laid up within weeks'",
and it said:
A grim warning about the future of the British fishing industry was sounded at Fleetwood on Friday by Mr. Bill Suddaby, president of the British Trawlers' Federation.
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for sending his Minister of State to visit Fleetwood. There can be no doubt that the right hon. Gentleman has had a full report of what is happening in the industry, but if he had been there himself he would have seen the dilemma that we are facing. We have an improved fish dock being expanded, which is costing a great deal of money and putting up charges, while at the same time the trawler "Arsenal" from the other side is being broken up before its time, not because it is not a useful ship but because it cannot make money under present circumstances. That is the dilemma that we are facing today.
We know that the right hon. Gentleman is having a battle with the Treasury. We hope he will win the battle, and win it in the very near future, because if we do not get a statement today about the subsidy there will be deep trouble and probably 50 to 60 trawlers, especially the side-winders, as the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Johnson) said, and the oil burners, will disappear for good and with them a number of jobs.
The agreement with Iceland is of the utmost importance to my port. We are more dependent upon Icelandic waters than are the Humber ports and possibly Aberdeen too. We do not want another cod war. The fishermen do not want to face that with winter coming on. The Prospect is appalling, and I hope that the Minister will be represented at the talks. I hope that a fisheries Minister from his Department or from the Scottish Office will always be present together with the Foreign Office negotiators. It is necessary to ensure that fisheries interests are represented at the talks and that, if necessary, the attitude of the Foreign Office is stiffened, because the right hon. Gentleman knows far more than Foreign Office Ministers do the problems that we are facing and the communities that may die unless this equation is worked out correctly.
I was one of those who welcomed the Minister' achievement on reference prices when the matter was considered in Brussels. That got me into trouble with many people in the trawler industry who welcomed reference prices, but not the level at which they were fixed. If we are not to get a continuation of subsidy as an immediate measure, there should be an increase in the reference prices.
I think that this can be pressed through by our colleagues in the European Parliament. My hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough (Mr. Shaw) can assist the Minister in that direction. The right hon. Gentleman has today painted a picture of the fishing industry that is true in every detail. In his analysis he has shown the dangers and difficulties that lie ahead. We need action now. The Minister has set out the problems. Let him try to solve them.

6.0 p.m.

Mr. John Corrie: Although this is a very short debate, that does not detract from its importance. This proud industry faces a serious problem. We are not talking just about the men who go to sea but about their families who for generations have handed the boats down from father to son and about entire communities which live and depend entirely on fishing and which will die unless the Minister can act quickly. I hope he appreciates that this is a personal problem for many people in Scotland.
It has been said that Europe did not take much interest in fishing. We have had three or four debates on fishing in the European institutions since last March. Modesty forbids me to say who led two of them.
The industry has gone from the wave of two years ago to the trough of the present day. In those good days many fishermen bought new boats and better equipment. Now they face major cash flow problems. Cannot the Minister help with those problems for people who are trying to pay for boats they bought a year or two ago? The fuel subsidy has been helpful and it is a sad thing that it is being taken off. The fishermen like the glasshouse men, are being sold down the river. Our friends in Europe are being given the fishing subsidy, as they are the

glasshouse subsidy, but it is not being given to people in this country. Cannot the subsidy continue? Could it not be given for boats of 35 to 40 ft.? That would take in most of the big boats in our fishing fleet.
The main problem is the protection of stocks around our coast. There is no point in discussing the industry's problems if in a year or two there will be no fish for it to catch. We must get down with other EEC countries to discussing agreements on our fishing and perhaps make some bilateral arrangements with Norway, which after all takes about 90 per cent. of the herring stocks from our waters. I do not think that Norway would be allowed by the EEC to go it alone with a 50-mile limit. We have just discussed over there allowing Norway to have closed areas at certain times for her fishing. She had to go to the EEC for that permission although she is not a member. Surely the same thing would happen if she were to push her limits out.
The NEAFC conference has failed to do the job it set out to do. It has tried to please all countries and to share out catches that do not exist. For instance, on the West Coast of Scotland the catch has been put at 150,000 tons. My fishermen friends tell me that it will not be above 66,000 tons in the coming year.
The Scottish fishermen also suggest that their areas should have a fishing-free time in certain months. I notice in the handout from the North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission that this matter is again being considered. I hope that some ideas will come up in the session from 11th to 18th November. The scientists have their figures right, but many boffins behind desks have their figures wrong. Soon there will be no fish. Could not this country try to show leadership in ways of protecting the fish around our coasts? Industrial fishing for herring is having a serious effect. Perhaps we can contact our European friends to see what we can sort out.
Another major problem is policing. Perhaps we, as British people, are so honest that we would do nothing wrong, but many of the countries fishing around our coasts are not doing what they are supposed to do. The Russians fished 50 purse-netters off the West Coast from


four mother ships last year, yet they claimed that no herring were being caught and that the fish that were being caught were for industrial use only. Those boats were fishing right among our own herring fleet, so they must have been taking herring as well. But this could not be checked. Could we not find a way of checking on what is being caught? In 1966–70 in that area 60,000 tons of herring were being taken annually. That figure rose in 1973 to 250,000 tons. That cannot go on.
I know that there is in Europe a growing fish mountain in certain types—cod and saithe, for instance—but perhaps, like Jacob's translation of Pharoah's dream, these are the fat years before the lean. We will not have fish to catch in a few years. Soon it will be a luxury food. Exclusive rights must come for British fishermen, but it is no good having exclusive rights if there is nothing left to catch.
I am sure that the Minister is sincere, but I hope that by the end of the evening he can turn his sincere words into hard cash. I hope he will do something before this proud industry drowns in despair and men no longer go down to the sea in ships.

6.6 p.m.

Mr. Kenneth Warren: I want to talk about only one facet of this problem. There are hundreds of angry fishermen along the Sussex coast because of the Government's failure to recognise how their fishing grounds are being destroyed by beam trawling. I do not care whether the beam trawlers come from Belgium or Brixham, but for 16 months now the fishermen of Sussex have been repeatedly pressing the Government for reasonable scientific evidence to disprove their case that they are losing their livelihood by stealth. The evidence presented to them so far has been totally inadequate by any reasonable scientific standards.
I plead with the Minister once more to look at this problem. The outgoing Conservative Government in February 1974 acknowledged that the problem was there and agreed to ban beam trawling while a better scientific study was made. Cannot the Minister listen to these fishermen? Their livelihoods depend on their ability to continue fishing in the way that they

know is best suited to the coasts of the South of England. The Minister of State came to visit us—he came, he talked, he went away.
It is not necessary to seek such a ban from the EEC or to wait for any conference of the North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission or for the Law of the Sea Conference. Within his own powers and jurisdiction he has the right and the ability to introduce a ban. A ban is only reasonable when one considers the way in which these fishermen are gradually being driven from the sea.
The parameters required for a ban are well known to the Minister. There has been repeated correspondence on this subject, not only from me but from every hon. Member along the Sussex coast. The control of beam trawling could be effected by limiting the registered weight of vessels to 25 tons and their power to a maximum of 150 horsepower.
Why are the Government so stubborn on this subject? Democracy surely is the rule of the wishes of the majority. The majority of the fishermen, all their Members of Parliament and nearly every constituent one talks to agree that this ban should be introduced to protect these fishermen. We all like our fish and chips. Our Dover sole and plaice come from Hastings, not from any other part of the British Isles. We expect the fishermen's rights to be understood. This country is the prime partner in Europe's Community fishing industry. Here is one subject in which we could take an initiative now and show leadership. We need wait for no one but ourselves.

6.9 p.m.

Mr. James Kilfedder: The fishing industry is vital to this country and it is a tragedy that fishermen face financial hardship and unemployment. It is intolerable that the Minister has said nothing helpful in this debate for the fishermen, nothing on cost or oil subsidies and nothing about the exclusive fishing limit around our coasts which is necessary to protect our fishermen from foreign competitors. It is lamentable that the right hon. Gentleman did not today confirm the oil subsidy which is received by our competitors, Norway and the EEC fishing countries. Without that subsidy our fishermen are facing bankruptcy, because they are not getting any


decent return for the fish they land at the quay.
The fishermen are in an angry mood. If the Government do not heed the fishermen, whose livelihood is at stake, there will be a confrontation, whether we like it or not, between the fishermen and the Government.
Last year British fishermen—that includes fishermen from my own port of Portvagoie and from Ardglass and Kilkeel in Northern Ireland—caught 25,000 tons of herring in the Manx fishing ground. That quantity was caught in the restricted season from 1st July to the end of September. Until the closed season was introduced, herring fishing went on up to the end of October.
I accept—and so do the Ulster fishermen—that restrictions are necessary to conserve herring stocks. However, the foreign boats can make nonsense of every measure to conserve fish. There is no means of knowing what the foreign boats caught last season. These foreign boats are mainly French, Dutch and Belgian. They are about three times as large as the average British fishing vessel. Some have deep freezing plants. One foreign boat alone can catch anything up to 500 tons of herring a week. They do not respect the closed season and will not respect any other restriction imposed by the Government. It makes mockery of Government measures for conservation if foreign boats can put the herring in jeopardy with impunity.
The British fisherman is in danger of losing his employment through this unfair competition. It is not only fishermen but those engaged in fish processing.
The Government now suggest that British boats should be restricted to 18,000 tons of herring in the season which is just commencing, with a ban on fishing on the east side of the Isle of Man and restricting fishing tot 30th September, as last year, with fishing all out seven days a week if the fishermen so wish. But the fishermen do not believe that these are the best measures. I think that the Government should heed the fishermen. The fishermen are prepared to restrict their fishing to three and a half or four days a week within that restricted season. However, the foreign vessels must be stopped.
The Government say—we have heard it from the right hon. Gentleman—that they cannot do anything about the foreign boats. For example, I believe that boats from the Irish Republic took about 2,000 tons of herring last year from the Manx fishing ground. Is it right that the Government have asked if they would please keep to 2,000 tons this season?
Again, there is no power to enforce that limit on those fishermen. The Government are prepared, seemingly, to dictate to British fishermen, but they will not or cannot stop the foreign fishing vessels from their piracy of the fish that is within our seas. There must be a fishing zone around the British coast restricted exclusively to British fishermen, and the fishing limit must be patrolled by fishery protection vessels and other vessels. It is scandalous for the Government to say that this is not possible.
I as an Ulsterman hear that boats are patrolling up and down the Ulster coast to prevent guns and explosives from being smuggled in. Surely it must therefore be possible to prevent these foreign fishing boats from taking the food out of the mouths of British people.
I understand—perhaps the Minister will deal with this point later—that it is possible for a British fish wholesaler, or indeed anyone else in this country, to hire a foreign fishing vessel and fish the Manx grounds for any quantity and at any time while the British fishing boats are lying, or could be left lying, idle.
Finally, the fishermen have grave financial burdens to bear. These have been expressed already and eloquently enough in the House and I do not need to rehearse the matter again. The fishermen have a heavy outlay and a very small return and sometimes no return at all. The wide gap between the price of fish at the harbour and that in the shops is ridiculous.
Those who look to the fishermen to provide fish for this country should go out of their way to protect the fishermen. I hope that when the Minister winds up this brief debate he will, despite what the right hon. Gentleman said at the beginning, be able to offer something concrete to the fishermen, otherwise they


will be very angry, and I shall not blame them, because they will be witnessing the destruction of their industry.

6.15 p.m.

Mr. Robert Hicks: I, too, welcome this opportunity as a West Country Member to speak in this debate and agree that it could not come at a more appropriate time. I shall concentrate my remarks purely on the inshore sector.
I want enthusiastically to support the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings (Mr. Warren) about the need to make a decision, which I thought had been taken in principle already, prior to February 1974, that beam trawling should be banned pending the outcome of a further investigation. The problems that arise for the inshore fishermen of Devon and Cornwall as a consequence of beam trawlers coming, from Brixham are just as great as any competition they receive from any other part of the United Kingdom or from any of our European competitors.

Mr. Peart: May I respond to what was said by another hon. Member who pressed me on this? Naturally I have to rely on scientific advice. My present advice is that, although beam trawling is undoubtedly a highly efficient method of catching fish, the real threat to stocks lies in the general danger of over-fishing. This is the argument which is put to me. In view of the representations that have been made previously and what has been said in this debate I give the assurance that I will respond to the probing of my parliamentary colleagues and look at this again.

Mr. Hicks: We on this side of the House are most grateful to the Minister for that assurance.
I want to say a few words about the operating subsidy. All fishermen, whether deep sea or inshore, have been faced with very significant increases in their operating costs—in particular, the costs of energy, wages and equipment. Those increases in operating costs have not been compensated by increased quayside prices. As a direct consequence of this there has been a decline in the size of our fishing fleet and thus of our catching capacity. The cycle does not end there. It also

means increased imports of fish, which further accentuate our adverse balance of payments situation.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) so rightly said, there is a parallel here with the farming industry. Earlier this year the Government published the White Paper entitled "Food From Our Own Resources". Surely it is logical and consistent to take just the same necessary remedial action in respect of the fish-producing industry as it is for the land itself.
When in February of this year the Minister announced the introduction of an operating subsidy, it did not apply to inshore vessels of less than 40 ft. Although hon. Members on both sides may be disappointed that no decision has been made on whether this operating subsidy is to continue, it at least enables me tonight to emphasise again the very strong case, which, I believe, the inshore fishermen have, to be grant aided in a similar way to that in which boats over 40 ft. have been over the past six months.
It is also very clear that this decision lies with the British Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. We have the necessary clearance from Brussels. Indeed, our European competitors are subsidising their own fleets. Therefore, when the Minister makes his announcement, which I hope will be soon—and I hope that it will be in favour of the continuation of the principle of an operating subsidy—I hope it will include boats less than 40 ft. in length. I say this for the following reasons. The arguments that applied in favour of grant aiding the deep sea and middle distance vessels are equally appropriate to the inshore vessels. After all, the inshore operators have had to bear the necessary increase in costs, and those considerations which were valid for the deep sea and middle distance vessels are equally valid in the case of the inshore vessels.
When in February of this year I put down a Parliamentary Question to the Minister asking why boats under 40 ft. in length would not qualify for this assistance I was informed that in the case of the inshore fleet serious structural dislocation was not likely to take place. I believe that this structural dislocation, which the Minister was anxious to avoid


in the case of boats over 40 ft. in length, is equally applicable to vessels under 40 ft. In the inshore fishing industry in Devon and Cornwall boats under 40 ft. in length play a very significant part in the local economy. In Cornwall there are about 200 vessels. This means that about 180 boats, fishing largely for mackerel but also for prime fish such as plaice and sole, and, of course, shellfish, are not eligible. Within my own constituency 40 boats are not eligible. These directly employ 100 people. With the spin-off in the subsidiary industries, probably 400 people are involved. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will give sympathetic consideration to including vessels under 40 ft.
I remind the right hon. Gentleman that parts of Cornwall are located within a development area. There are very few alternative employment opportunities there at present. We also depend, in these districts, on the tourist industry. One reason why this is an important tourist area is that people come to Looe and Polperro in my constituency not only because they are attractive scenically but also because they are alive. They are alive because of the activity at the fish quays. Therefore, although not directly applicable to the fishing industry, this is an important consideration.
The Government must not think that because fishermen from the West Country are not at the moment sailing up the River Thames, as they did on an earlier occasion, all is satisfactory. We in the west are keeping a very close watch on the current situation, and we all hope that the Government will respond favourably within the next week and will include an operating subsidy for vessels under 40 ft. in length.

6.24 p.m.

Mr. Michael Shaw: I shall not follow the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Bodmin (Mr. Hicks) straight away, although in a few moments I may refer to something that he said. I, too, welcome the debate initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling).
I think that all the speeches in this debate so far have proved that there is real concern about the industry and that there was a real need for this debate. We have heard speeches on behalf of the

middle and distant water fleets and also the inshore fleets. The fact is that we cannot isolate the problems of the various fleets, because if action is taken in the interests of one section of the industry it has an effect either directly or indirectly on other sectors of the industry. So while we have to look at the individual parts, at the same time we have to see what reaction there will be to whatever we are proposing on the other parts as well.
The biggest worry must lie in the future of the industry. Certainly all the fishermen in my constituency regard that as their chief worry, although they have some real difficulties to contend with at the moment. The lack of any decisive outcome from the Law of the Sea Conference, whilst not surprising, was none the less disappointing. There is a very real danger of unilateral action by individual countries, and we must be prepared to react vigorously and immediately. We are in a far better position to do that within the Common Market than outside it.
Here I should like to retract something that I thought earlier about the right hon. Gentleman the Minister. At first, I thought that he was not interested in the fishing industry. Now I know that he is. I believe that he has tried his best to help the industry to promote in Europe a realisation of the needs of the British fishing industry, and he is to be congratulated on doing that.
I believe we ought to put into the record of this debate the actual words of support used by Mr. Lardinois in the debate in April, after discussions with the right hon. Gentleman. He said that if
our Community fishermen are threatened by the unilateral action of third parties…may we count on it that if a situation of this kind arises, we shall review our market agreement with those countries which includes a provision to the effect that the existing fishery arrangements must not be disturbed; we shall in fact look after the interests of our own people whose existence would then be threatened, and attempt to find a solution for them.
That shows that the interests of our fishing industry are very much in the minds of Mr. Lardinois and the Commission, and I believe that by working together the Community is much more likely to reach a solution for the benefit of our fishing industry than if we sought to do it alone. This is a very great step


forward. I hope that those words will be written on the door of the Minister's private office to remind him that we are prepared at this moment to take action if it is proved to be necessary, and I hope that we shall always be prepared to take that action.
May I refer to the fuel subsidy? It has been announced that the Community has agreed that if nations want to take advantage of this they can do so till the end of the year. We have heard that it is still under consideration by the Minister. I believe that this is not the Minister's fault, and that the fault lies with the inaction of other sections of the Government. I hope that in that and many other directions there will be speedy conclusions so that action may be taken. However, when a decision is made, and should it be decided that the fuel subsidy will be continued, I should like to know whether it will be retrospective to the beginning of this month. I believe that this much, at any rate, we ought to know. I also believe that if the subsidy is to continue it should apply also to the small boats, which have been particularly heavily hit during these last two months.
On 26th March I raised with the right hon. Gentleman the question of the right to land one's own catch. This is a vital question to many inshore fishermen. The right hon. Gentleman was courteous enough to write to me fully on this matter. I should like to read just part of his reply and then ask him a question. He said that
…generally vessels of less than 801, and occasionally a few larger ones are operated on a genuine share basis. That is to say the crews are paid solely on an agreed share of the proceeds of the voyage after costs have been met…The ports where this is a traditional practice are known beyond question and it would be a matter of concern to the Fishery Minister if unilateral action were initiated to alter the practice contrary to the spirit and the intention stated in the consultative document which is to preserve the historic pattern.
The only question I would ask the Minister is, would he now, on behalf of the Government, declare that it is the Government's firm intention to maintain this practice? If he were to say that on behalf of the whole Government, not just on behalf of his Ministry, many fishermen in many ports throughout the country would be very relieved indeed.

6.31 p.m.

Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith: This afternoon we have had an extremely wide-ranging debate with hon. Members speaking for many different parts of the country. The very serious nature of the debate and the unanimity of view which has been expressed by all hon. Members and by all parties with equal strength of feeling will, I hope, drive home to the Minister and his Friends the urgency of the present situation. However, I beg the Scottish National Party to realise that it does not have a monopoly of interest in the fishing industry. The one thing that this debate has demonstrated is the tremendous breadth of feeling across many areas.
I do not want to include in the debate anything of a party political note, but if the hon. Member for Banff (Mr. Watt) and fellow members of his party feel so strongly about the fishing industry and if, as they say, they have taken every opportunity to raise this matter in the House on different occasions, I simply ask them why they were not present at the meeting of the Standing Committee on 21st May when the subsidy scheme was discussed. No hon. Member of that party was present during that debate.

Mr. Welsh: I would simply ask the hon. Gentleman where he and all his colleagues were during the debate on the Consolidated Fund which dealt with the fishing industry.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: My hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) was present at that debate. I am simply begging the Scottish National Party not to put around claims which are untrue.
The strength of feeling in the House is demonstrated by the very wide range of areas that have been represented. Among hon. Member who have spoken are, from the far South, my hon. Friend the Member for Bodmin (Mr. Hicks) and from the North the hon. Member for Banff (Mr. Watt). The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) has also intervened. Front across the Irish Sea the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) has strongly represented the views of the Ulster fishermen. From coastal areas around Britain my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Gilmour), my hon. Friend the


Member for Bute and North Ayrshire (Mr. Corrie), the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), my right hon. Friend the Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood), my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings (Mr. Warren) and my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough (Mr. Shaw) have spoken on behalf of the inshore industry and the particular problems it faces at present. From the fishing ports and hon. Members with interests in the middle and further distant waters my hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall), my hon. Friend the Member for North Fylde (Mr. Clegg) and the hon. Members for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara) and Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Johnson) have put their views very forcibly.
There are many other Members—not least my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat), who has an interest in the Aberdeen fishing fleet but who has not spoken—who have with unanimity tried to drive home to the Government how seriously they regard the situation in the fishing industry. This matter is urgent. As my hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice said, the subsidy ends tonight. Any boat going to sea after midnight, or indeed any boat at sea at present, ceases to get any subsidy as from midnight. This is the twelfth hour. Although we appreciate that the right hon. Gentleman has to consider this matter with his colleagues in the Government and with his Treasury colleagues, he told us this on 21st May in Committee. He has had quite a long time to consider the matter. I accept that the right hon. Gentleman is genuine and I accept his sincerity about the industry, but I beg him to realise that we, as responsible Members of Parliament who appreciate the position, have been constructive in the debate.
We appreciate the difficulties facing the Government. I beg the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend who will reply to consider those people who do not have the same access to matters as Ministers. Those people have not heard the sincerity of the Minister's words tonight. Those who are working on the boats, in the ports and at sea are worried. They have to accept assurances which are second hand. For them deeds, not words,

will provide the solution. It is deeds that we want. I hope that the Minister will convey to his colleagues in the Cabinet the united words from the House—from every hon. Member who has spoken, from all parts of the United Kingdom—about just how urgent the situation is, because it is desperately urgent.
Three main points have been mentioned tonight. I do not intend to go over all the arguments because they have been put far more forcefully and strongly by many hon. Members than I could put them. I shall summarise them under three heads. First, I shall deal with them in relation to the economic situation of the industry. I do not want to go over the figures again but I shall put one or two figures to the House simply to emphasise the situation. I shall take purely Scottish figures because those for other areas have already been put. I shall deal with the point of view of the Scottish Trawlers' Federation, with which my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South would have dealt if he had had a chance to address the House.
In the six months to 31st March 1974 the 48 vessels operating at the time were operating to a margin of profit of about £55 a day. In the six months to 31st March 1975 over 56 vessels were operating at a loss of £172 per day. Against that has to be set an average daily subsidy of £58. Therefore, there is a loss of over £100 a day. How long can the fleet continue—how long can any industry continue—on that basis? That is the extent of the seriousness of the situation.
I shall take as an example the Scottish inshore fleet which is fishing for white fish. In the first five months of 1974 its total earnings—I emphasise "total"— were £21 million. In the first five months of 1975 its total earnings were £16 million. In other words, there has been a downturn in cash terms of 24 per cent. and in real terms of 39 per cent. in the earnings that those in that section of the industry receive. I shall take as a further example the Scottish herring industry. In the first five months of 1974 its total earnings were £5·9 million. These decreased to £3·4 million in the first five months of 1975. In other words, there was a reduction of 42 per cent. in money terms and 54 per cent. in real terms.
We do not know the detailed cost position for the inshore industry. We have detailed costs for the deep sea industry. I shall compare the situation with that which appertained a year ago. Deep sea industry costs increased by about 25 per cent. Therefore, with the dramatic fall in earnings the industry is suffering a catastrophic blow with costs increasing by over 25 per cent. How long can the industry survive? This is the question that the industry is asking itself—we are not the only people who are asking it—because the industry is desperately worried.
I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman wants, as we all want a future for the industry. I beg him to put himself in the position of a skipper on a share boat coming out of a port in the north-east of Scotland, perhaps Peterhead or Fraser-burgh. If he does not do that, he will lose his crew. They will go to the oil rigs. When the oil industry loses the momentum that it has at present, as it inevitably will at some stage, from where shall we be able to bring back a fishing industry? There will be no fishing industry. That is the worry facing people at present, quite apart from the problems we have throughout the processing industry and everything else.
In Aberdeen a few weeks ago Findus, as reported in the Press and Journal of 16th June, was paying off 93 employees out of a work force of 550, again relating to the present difficulties in the industry. Talking in terms of the catch side and of the quayside and processing industries, this is a situation of very serious crisis which requires action and not just pledges or words from the Government.
Secondly, as regards the question of limits and conservation, I simply repeat what my colleagues have said from all sides of the House. I do not believe that we can simply wait to see what happens. We cannot afford to wait. We have made our attempts through the Law of the Sea Conference. I commend the efforts of everyone who took part in them. We have seen the efforts made in the North East Atlantic Fishery Commission and we are now waiting to see whether the results of that commission are to be ratified. But time is running out in relation to the NEAFC. If any country fails to ratify

the NEAFC—Denmark, for example—by November, what will happen then? What will happen is that there will be an absolute free-for-all. That is the urgency of it. If the existing arrangements fail, that is what makes proper internationally agreed arrangements—I agree with the right hon. Gentleman here—essential in order to make sure that we can conserve our fish stocks.
I believe that it is important that we do not wait either way. We cannot wait for the Law of the Sea Conference which reconvenes in a year's time. That is far too long. We cannot even wait until November, until we see whether countries ratify the North East Atlantic Fishery Commission agreement. The Government should be starting talks now. I do not ask them to say publicly whether they are doing so, but I urge them to say privately that they are starting talks. The only way to get agreement on this vital matter of conserving fish stocks is for those who have an interest in the waters around our shores to get together, as individuals, in pairs or as groups of nations, and try to work out the kind of arrangements to which we can come in order to conserve stocks. I ask the Government not to wait but to act now.
Third, as regards the EEC, I remind the Government—I beg of them to remember it—how important we are as a fishing nation within the EEC. The right hon. Gentleman has said this, and I am glad. I wish that he would acknowledge it in deeds as well as words. We would give him time to do so. If the limits go out to 200 miles, we must remember that 56 per cent. of the area of the new 200-mile limit falls in waters around the United Kingdom. That is the extent of our stake in the fishing pond of the Common Market. At the same time, in terms of landings we are by far the most important Common Market country.
As my hon. Friends have pointed out, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough, within the EEC we are in a position of influence because of our importance as a fishing nation. We are also in a position, working with the other countries, to have far greater influence on countries such as Iceland or Norway, which may be tempted to take unilateral action. We start from a position of far greater strength. We want to


see that happen and to see that we are using our position within the EEC to do it.
Summing up quickly, what I want to say to the Government is this. First, we want an answer on the subsidy and we want that answer quickly, otherwise the industry may die. Second, we want to know from the Minister his views about the future of the industry. Does he want an industry or not? We believe that he does, although it may be a slightly different industry. Is he prepared to start talks now with the industry to see what kind of structure and industry we want in the future?
Third, we ask the Minister to start talks now—I say "now" and I mean now—with other countries which have an interest in the waters around our shores and with the EEC in order to get effective conservation measures for our fishing industry. We want the Government to give much more priority to this industry.
In the last moments available to me in the debate, perhaps I may compare the oil industry with the fishing industry. The oil industry is very much in competition with the fishing industry at present. I am worried that the fishing industry is not getting all the attention that it should. Let us remember that oil is a wasting resource. The oil industry is most important to the nation at present, for our balance of payments and for 101 reasons. But oil is a wasting asset. It is a resource that is declining as we exploit it, whereas let us remember that fish is a natural resource and a renewable resource, but it is a renewable resource only if we are prepared to conserve it and to husband it. It is that which we ask the Government to do.
I do not intend to ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to divide the House this evening. We are disappointed that the Minister has not given all the assurances for which we have asked. However, I beg him to go back after the debate with a true sense of the strong feeling in the House and talk about this matter again with his colleagues and see what he can do to answer the points that have been raised. Unless the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues come up with an answer to some of them, we make the pledge that we intend to return to this

matter. We believe in keeping a united, all-party approach to the problems of the fishing industry. I beg the right hon. Gentleman not to put us into the position of having to divide the House on matters relating to such an important industry, important for Scotland and for the United Kingdom as a whole.

6.46 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Hugh D. Brown): I welcome the useful and constructive approach of the hon. Member for North Angus and Mearns (Mr. Buchanan-Smith). It is typical of all the contributions that have been made, with the notable exception of that of the hon. Member for Banff (Mr. Watt), to which I shall come in due course.

Mrs. Winifred Ewing: Tell that to the fishermen.

Mr. Brown: I have already done that.

Mrs. Ewing: Tell it to them again.

Mr. Brown: I do not have much time. The number of interventions is up to hon. Members.
Nevertheless, this has been a most useful and constructive debate. I am sure that the whole House appreciates that the Opposition have used half a Supply Day to enable us to have this discussion.
Hon. Members have raised many questions. I do not need to apologise for mentioning the contribution that Scottish fishermen make to the industry as a whole. It is not always understood, even in the House, that Scotland contributes about 50 per cent. in weight of the catches landed and something over 40 per cent. in value. There is no need for the hon. Member for Banff or anyone else to lecture me about the importance of the industry to the people of Scotland.
Having said that, however, I think it would be wise at the beginning to assure hon. Members who have raised this matter, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Johnson), that there is absolutely no reluctance on the part of my right hon. Friend the Minister, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland or myself to have meetings on an all-party basis with the officials present. I hope that they continue. Hon. Members


may criticise the Government for not being speedy enough or not managing to solve every problem. Nevertheless, I have personally found these meetings a most useful contribution to fishing debates. The knowledge of both officials and hon. Members has been increased through this kind of dialogue. Therefore, there is no question that we cannot continue with these meetings as and when there is a need.
If I omit to reply to any particular points, it will not be a deliberate omission. I shall check to make sure that they receive a reply.
The analysis of the state of the industry by the hon. Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) was very fair. I would not disagree with him. Perhaps I may merely emphasise the point that the severity of the problems facing the industry arises to some extent in the sharp contrast of all the problems that have accumulated in the past year as compared with the exceptional prosperity the industry enjoyed in the period from 1971 to 1973. The position of the fishing industry in this respect is very like that of any other industry. The hon. Gentleman made the fair point in connection with farming that in the beef sector in particular it was hard to take the situation last year to some extent because of the good years which had preceded a bad year.
I acknowledge the hon. Gentleman's analysis of the problems facing the industry. I should not necessarily disagree with his figures, although I must point out—he will know this very well from experience—that when any organisations submits a claim it is often safer to wait until the background to that claim has been examined in detail both by officials and in course of discussions before one comes to firm conclusions on it. Sometimes a claim can be somewhat exaggerated, though I do not say that there is any attempt deliberately to mislead the Government. I imagine that we are all guilty at times of exaggerating a case.
Although I do not necessarily accept all the hon. Gentleman's figures regarding present losses, I readily accept that we need to discuss the state of the industry in detail, and we are now doing just that.
It is not true, as the British Trawlers' Federation has suggested, that very few are either noticing or caring about the fishing industry. For the whole of this year it has rated a high priority. I have used that phrase in discussions with the fishermen. We were challenged by the fishermen at the time of the blockade, it being their view that their industry should have figured in the renegotiations about entry into the EEC. This is hardly fair to the Government. I am not making a party point here. The economics of the fishing industry were not causing great concern at the time of the renegotiations. Renegotiation of the common fisheries policy was not in our election manifesto, and to the best of my knowledge it was not in anyone else's manifesto. I do not think that it was in the Liberal Party manifesto—

Mr. Beith: It was.

Mr. Brown: I suppose that pretty well everything one can think of will be in the Liberal Party manifesto, although there will be no likelihood of that manifesto being implemented. Seriously, I think it perfectly reasonable to say, in response to what the fishermen and their organisations have been saying since the time of the blockade, that there has been no cause whatever to criticise my right hon. Friends or the Government in general for any lack of care for or interest in the fishing industry.
It is unfair now to suggest that the common fisheries policy is inadequate and not capable of dealing with some of the problems facing the industry. The fact that there are now nine nations instead of six in the Community makes a difference. If we had been involved in the early stages of the EEC, perhaps the common fisheries policy would have had more attention. But we are dealing with the situation now. It has been put on the agenda by my right hon. Friend, and I am sure that it will be tackled with some urgency.

Mr. Donald Stewart: It is not on the agenda.

Mr. Brown: It is.
Many points have been raised in the debate, and I must do my best to comment briefly on as many as possible. I noticed that the right hon. Member for


Bridlington (Mr. Wood), while arguing about the continuation of the subsidy, did not suggest that it was a permanent solution. I do not think anyone has suggested that. Recognising that it is not a permanent solution, we have to look for other answers to the present problems—I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about that—but that is not to say that we are not looking at the continuation of the subsidy, although I have to tell the House that no information has been passed to me since my right hon. Friend spoke earlier, and I know that hon. Members will not expect me to make an announcement. We have made clear that the matter is still being considered, and I can add nothing to that.
The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) raised many problems, some of which he has raised with me personally on other occasions or in the Chamber in previous debates. He will not expect me to reply to all of them tonight, but I wish to take up one matter to which he and others referred, namely, a scrapping subsidy for the fishing fleet. In my view it is a bit too soon to take that sort of pessimistic or even despondent view. In the first place, we are still negotiating quotas and possible limits. It is, therefore, premature to think in terms of aiming at a certain structure for the industry when other information is required and other decisions have to be made before one could reach that stage.
The hon. Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall)—perhaps he may have used his influence to have this debate—expressed the hope that it would give the Government an opportunity to announce a subsidy. I have noted his disappointment. The hon. Gentleman is a Member of long experience, and I think that he was using a well-know parliamentary technique. I have not the slightest doubt that my right hon. Friends the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Secretary of State for Scotland are both pretty strong characters. One need have no illusions about that. I do not wish to present it in the terms which the hon. Gentleman used for being capable of standing up to the

Treasury, but I do not think that he need be too concerned about that.

It has been a useful debate because we have been made aware—[Interruption.] I hope that hon. Members will not overdo it. This has been a harmonious debate, and I do not want to make provocative comments about increasing public expenditure.

I think it right now to say a word or two to the hon. Member for Banff. Repeatedly he exaggerates. Repeatedly he refuses to give credit to the Government for what has been done. It may not be enough. It may be—

Mr. Watt: That is not what I said.

Mr. Brown: I noted the hon. Gentle man's words carefully. He said that the Government had chosen to do nothing. When pinned down on that he rephrased and revised it, saying that if they had done anything it was too little and too late. Both cannot be right. In fact, the Government have done something—

Mr. Andrew Welsh: rose—

Mr. Brown: No, I cannot give way. It is grossly unfair to make attacks of that kind on the Government. People outside the House can know what goes on here only through the Press and radio—I hope that it will be on radio tonight—and it is grossly unfair of the hon. Member for Banff and his party to make such attacks if they are not at the same time prepared to give credit when credit is due, and they are ever ready to exploit the fears which undoubtedly prevail in many parts of Scotland and the United Kingdom about the future of the industry. It is bad enough for a Government faced with two—

Mrs. Winifred Ewing: Mrs. Winifred Ewing rose in her place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.

Question put, That the Question be now put:—

The House divided: Ayes 9, Noes 4.

Division No. 248.]
AYES
[6.59 p.m.


Evans Gwynfor (Carmarthen)
Thompson, George
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Ewing, Mrs Winifred (Moray)
Watt, Hamish
Mrs. Margaret Bain and


Kilfedder, James
Welsh, Andrew
Mr. Douglas Henderson.


MacCormick, Iain
Wigley, Dafydd



Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)






NOES



Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)




Hooson, Emlyn




Steel, David (Roxburgh)




Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)




TELLERS FOR THE NOES:




Mr. Donald Coleman and




Miss Margaret Jackson.

Whereupon Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER declared that the Question was not decided in the affirmative, because it was not supported by the majority prescribed by Standing Order No. 31 (Majority for Closure).

It being after Seven o'clock, and there being Private Business set down by direction of The CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS, under Standing Order No. 7 (Time for taking Private Business), further Proceeding stood postponed.

EASTBOURNE HARBOUR BILL [Lords] (By Order)

Order for consideration, as amended, read.

7.8 p.m.

Mr. Ian Gow: I beg to move, That the Eastbourne Harbour Bill, as amended, be now considered.
It may be for the convenience of the House if I say a little about the background of this Bill, which is referred to briefly in the preamble, before I go on to talk, again briefly, about Parts II, III and IV of the Bill.
The Bill is promoted by the Eastbourne Harbour Company, which is owned by the trustees of Chatsworth Estates. Those trustees own about 400 acres—150 hectares—of land adjacent to the coast about two miles to the east of Eastbourne. This land has been worked for sand and gravel for about 100 years. The site is a barren and featureless stretch of coast almost entirely unused for any purpose except the quarrying to which I have referred. Few people at present use this stretch of coast for any purpose.
About 14 years ago the former Eastbourne County Borough Council commissioned a report from a consulting engineer on the technical feasibility of constructing a harbour for small boats on this site. The report, published in June 1962, was favourable. Five years later

the Eastbourne urban plan, adopted by the former county borough council, contained the following paragraphs:
The consultant's report described the construction of a harbour of some 50 hectares by excavating gravel from the Crumbles promontory"—
the Crumbles is the name by which this area of land is known—
together with the construction of a harbour arm. Keel boats and larger craft cannot use the steeply shelving beach of the foreshore. The proposed yacht harbour would provide an area for parking dinghies in safety from the elements and moorings for keel boats and larger craft. The harbour would also provide other amenities for leisure which are associated with these facilities and include residential development, hotels, shops and small boat activities.
The report concluded:
It is significant that yachting is by far the fastest growing sport and that with the limited facilities in the Eastbourne locality the provision of a yacht harbour would be a real attraction.
On the last paragraph of that quotation, it is interesting to note that the number of sailing clubs in the country has increased from 500 in 1950 to 1,567 this year. Sailing and small boats represent today, as they did when that report was written, the largest growing leisure-time activity in the country. Even after the proposed marina at Brighton has been completed, this part of the South Coast will still be totally inadequately served by harbours for small boats.
In 1970 the trustees instructed Messrs. Leonard Monnassey and Partners, chartered architects, to make preliminary planning studies, and it was decided after those studies had been completed to make a more detailed study of a plan which would involve not only the construction of a harbour but other developments, too. The planned harbour would contain an outer tidal harbour, and inner tidal harbour, and a completely locked inner harbour which would not be tidal.
The scheme which is involved in the Bill envisages the provision of moorings for approximately 1,700 small boats, plus


—and this is very relevant in view of the debate we had earlier this evening—facilities for the local fishing fleet, which at present has no port and no haven. As things stand, local fishermen in Eastbourne and along the coast both to the west and the east have to drag their boats up on to the beach and can only put to sea at favourable tides and in favourable weather.
The Bill is necessary because the scheme requires the construction of two large breakwaters, sea walls, locks which would separate the inner tidal harbour from the lock basin, and quays, jetties, piers and moorings. An Act of Parliament is also necessary before dredging of the sea bed can take place.
Outline planning permission was obtained in 1971 from the former Eastbourne Borough Council for residential, educational, shopping, office, entertainment and water-based activities, recreational facilities and an open space in accordance with the county borough's urban plan. A revised application for planning permission was submitted to the East Sussex County Council by the Eastbourne Borough Council following reorganisation of local government last July. Last February the county planning officer and the county engineer for East Sussex issued a joint report to the council. Under the heading "General Consideration" they recommended to the county council in these terms:
With the exception of relatively limited facilities for the shelter and servicing of small boats at Shoreham, Newhaven and Rye there is no large scale accommodation at present available for use in the county, although some should become available in Brighton in 1977".
That was the marina to which I referred a moment ago. It continues:
The development of the harbour and associated development could also provide useful stimuli to Eastbourne as one of the leading health and residential centres of the South Coast, not only for boating and its spectators but in the provision of housing and as a source of employment, and recreational facilities are likely to introduce a younger age group.
There is a very serious population imbalance in my constituency, and the average age of the population is getting steadily higher while the number of young people seems to be growing steadily fewer.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: I would like to live there.

Mr. Gow: If the hon. Member came perhaps he would swell the Labour vote in the constituency where his party lost its deposit in February last year.
The report continues:
Apart from the sand and gravel workings most of the Crumbles area is unused and uninteresting in appearance and could benefit greatly by properly controlled development to improve the eastern approach to the borough. The main considerations are threefold. The difficulty of acceptability of the general contents of the proposals, the time scale involved and the environmental effects. The applicants have already carried out extensive investigations into the feasibility of the harbour and tests are currently in hand on scale models as to hydraulic and other aspects.
That report was submitted to the planning committee, and the county council and the committee subsequently resolved to grant outline planning permission not just for the harbour but for a primary school, welfare and health clinics, a library, recreational areas and office accommodation.
The trustees envisage that in addition to the harbour there would be some 2,500 dwellings as well as shops, holiday accommodation, including holiday flatlets, a swimming pool and a camping site. The trustees have agreed to make available to the county council free of charge land on which there would be built a new primary school, including playing fields for the school. The trustees have further agreed to make available free of charge land suitable for recreational facilities, as agreed between the trustees and the county council.
I have explained that the Bill is fully supported by the two local authorities concerned—the Eastbourne Borough Council and the East Sussex County Council. The construction of a harbour at Eastbourne is also strongly supported by the chief fisheries officer of the Sussex Fisheries Committee. It would be of particular value not just to the local fishing fleet but to fishermen who ply along that coast, because there is no convenient harbour, apart from the harbour of Newhaven, to the west, and Folkestone, 50 miles away to the east.
The new harbour and the moorings for the boats, the 2,500 dwellings and the community services would provide employment for 250 building workers over 15 years and permanent jobs on site for more than 1,000 people.
Eastbourne's main industry is tourism. The construction of a harbour at the eastern end of the town would add significantly to Eastbourne's international reputation as a holiday resort, and, in my view, and in the view of my constituents, it would bring substantial additional benefit to the economy of the town, as well as creating additional employment for its inhabitants.
The proposal for an inland locked harbour is particularly suitable, because the area in which it is being constructed is one where the quarrying of gravel and sand, mainly gravel, is being carried out. Thus a substantial part of the essential preliminaries of constructing an inland harbour will have been carried out already because of the quarrying of the gravel and sand.
It is certainly not the intention of the promoters of the Bill that the 2,500 dwellings, flats as well as houses, should become simply second homes. On the contrary, it is the wish both of the trustees and of the promoters that there should be a permanent resident community with all the necessary supporting facilities.

Mr. Max Madden: Can the hon. Gentleman give the House any indication of the number of those properties that will be available for rent, and of the range of rentals that would be required? Will any nominations be available to the local authority for council tenants?

Mr. Gow: The trustees are already in negotiation with non-profit making housing associations to sell to those associations, at a price agreed by the district valuer, land on which they could build property. As for the rental, it is relevant to point out that the cost of building a council house in London is now about £20,000, whereas some of these houses and flats will be built for about £12,000. I am speaking in 1973 prices.

Mr. James Wellbeloved: Will the hon. Gentleman answer the question about houses for rent?

Mr. Gow: A decision on whether properties will be for sale or to let has not yet been taken. It will be taken in the

light of the circumstances prevailing when the dwellings have been completed.

Mr. Stephen Ross: If housing associations are to provide housing, surely those properties will be let.

Mr. Gow: Of course. I mentioned properties which would be built by housing associations, but I thought that the hon. Gentleman was asking me about properties which would not be built by them. I said that a decision about those properties would be taken by the trustees in the light of the circumstances then prevailing.
Clause 44 provides that no start can be made on the harbour works without the consent of the Secretary of State for the Environment. Although the promoters would like to start work as soon as the necessary financial resources are available they are unlikely to be able to do so in the current economic climate, and I repeat that they could not do so save with the consent of the Secretary of State.
Many amendments have been tabled—77 and a new clause. That means that we shall have an opportunity to discuss almost every clause. Therefore, in this opening speech I do not propose to refer to the clauses in detail, although it may be for the convenience of the House if I make the following observations.
The Bill was introduced into another place in 1973, and it completed all its stages there on 1st July last year. In accordance with normal practice it has been submitted to the Department of Trade, the Department of the Environment and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. At their request, a number of admendments have been made. All three—and in referring to them I am not saying that other Government Departments have any objection—are now satisfied with the Bill. The Minister will, no doubt, confirm that there is now no objection to the Bill as it stands from any Government Department.

Mr. Wellbeloved: Has the report of the various Departments, which is normally made on Private Bills of this nature, been deposited in the Private Bill Office, to be available for perusal by hon. Members so that they may substantiate the claim that the hon. Gentleman has just made?

Mr. Gow: I think that my claim will be substantiated by the Minister, who is


closer to the hon. Gentleman than I am. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman asks his hon. Friend, who, I am sure, will confirm that what I have said is true.
Part I of the Bill deals with the definition. Part II sets out the works which are necessary in order to construct the harbour. Part III deals with harbour management. We shall be discussing all these matters later this evening.
For many years people in Eastbourne, successive members of Eastbourne Borough Council and those who live and work on this part of the South Coast, have recognised that there is a need for a harbour. That need does not arise just because of the increased demand for leisure activity in boats and small sailing craft. It is very much one for the fishermen. The promoters have agreed that fishermen will have the right to use the harbour on favourable terms, which the fishermen greatly welcome.
The waters of Eastbourne off Beachy Head are among the most dangerous coastal waters surrounding our shores. It is particularly appropriate that there should be an additional haven for small boats in distress, which would be provided in the outer tidal harbour and the inner tidal harbour.
The construction of the harbour would be certain to produce additional prosperity for my constituency. I believe that it would also attract a number of boats from neighbouring countries in the Community—visitors from France, Belgium and Holland. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) would be pleased about this. It would be a source of much needed assistance with our balance of payments deficit about which we hear so much.
Here is a Bill—supported by the overwhelming majority of my constituents, supported by the East Sussex County Council, by the Eastbourne Borough Council, and by the fishermen—which will provide not just a harbour but also, if this scheme goes through, 2,000 additional dwellings, a new school, a church, recreational facilities, and opportunities for the smallest as well as for the largest boats.
This Bill is necessary only for the harbour aspect of the scheme. If the Bill is denied, all that will be lost—though I

think it would be a grievous loss—is the harbour itself. The other aspects of the scheme, the construction of the houses, of the schools, of the church, and of the recreational facilities, will go on, probably, if planning permission is granted, round an inland lake. Those here tonight who may be uneasy about the non-harbour aspect of the scheme will not achieve their purpose by denying the Bill. If this Bill is denied the people who will be prejudiced will be the fishermen, the sailors in distress, and the economy, not just of my constituency but of other parts of East Sussex, which will, I believe, be gravely prejudiced.
For all these reasons I hope that this Bill will be considered tonight. I hope that it will go ahead and receive the Royal Assent, for I am convinced that the best interests of Eastbourne, of my constituents, of East Sussex, of the economy and of the country, will be served if this bold, imaginative and highly original proposal is carried through to fruition.

7.33 p.m.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: This debate in some ways epitomises the present situation of Britain's economy, because while we all—not merely Labour Members but Opposition Members too—talk about cutting public expenditure or using other fiscal considerations to save the pound, when we get away from the abstract and into the specific there are always plenty of people—usually the same people as are calling for belts to be tightened and socks to be pulled up—who will say "Ah, but on this particular matter we should forget about all these macroeconomic problems and allow it to go through."
The hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) represents a town which is increasingly becoming Tory or Liberal. There are various shades and it changes every so often, but by and large he represents a town that is oriented against the classes I represent. I can therefore well understand the hon. Member wanting to see this massive pleasure port being developed, perhaps changing the balance somewhat, not between the red and the blue but between the younger blues and the older blues. That is principally what is involved.
I can well understand the hon. Member's problem, but our job on the Labour


benches is sometimes to tell the establishment, whatever it may be at a given time—I hope it is not represented by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment—that if it wants to carry out a policy of redistributing the wealth of our country in favour of the working class, when we are confronted with something like the Eastbourne Harbour Bill—minor though it may be in relation to the grand total of the gross naional product, representing about 50 million at 1973 prices, and probably a lot more than that now—we have a duty to come to the House of Commons and say that we cannot allow it to go through.
There was a good example of this in recent times. I well recall, not too long ago, the proposal to have a Channel Tunnel. I remember the establishment then, in the person of the Secretary of State for the Environment, telling us—perhaps with tongue in cheek, perhaps not—that we should allow that Hybrid Bill to continue its merry way through the House. Some of us said that we thought it should not, and then a few months later we were told that the Channel Tunnel project was to be scrapped, notwithstanding all the problems with France and the Common Market and all the other considerations involved.
Today we are discussing a not dissimilar project in that it does not involve public expenditure to any great degree at the outset but will do so eventually, using up men and materials which we think, in our simple view, ought to be devoted to resolving some of the problems facing the economy.
I want to make it clear that I did not enter this argument purely on the basis that the Duke of Devonshire lives in an adjoining Derbyshire constituency. The fact that I happened to stray across this proposal some considerable time ago, during the course of the miners' pay claim dispute in November 1973—and thereafter naturally allowed myself to draw a comparison between the kind of money needed to get the miners back to work, and resolve some of the other economic problems, as against this substantial expenditure at Eastbourne—does not affect what I am saying on this occasion.
I concede that at that time the Opposition were in power and that we were talking about the current November 1973 economic crisis. Talking of economic crises, there has been one for the whole of the time that I have been in Parliament. We have always been in trouble. The Times leader is always exactly the same. It runs regularly, about once a month.
At the time of that November 1973 crisis, I thought that it just could not be true that there was a Bill going through the House of Lords to introduce a scheme to provide a yachting marina for the top people of Eastbourne, but on examination I found it to be true. Notwithstanding all that followed, the three-day week and the subsequent Labour victory, I naturally assumed that some of my right hon. and hon. Friends would take certain steps to put a stop to its progress, but, this measure having started, it then fell to me and ray hon. Friends—less distinguished but nevertheless keen and avid—to stop this project in the only way that we could stop it, perhaps along the same lines as those we used in helping to stop the Channel Tunnel project.
I am not prejudiced at all by the fact that the Duke of Devonshire happens to own almost all of Eastbourne.

Mr. Gow: It is not correct to say that the Duke of Devonshire owns almost half of Eastbourne. Nor is it true that those who go sailing in boats on their holidays or at weekends are very wealthy people. Quite poor people—many of them miners—go off in their boats on the canals or come and sail round the South Coast. I beg the hon. Gentleman to understand that there are very many people with comparatively slender resources who enjoy going out in their boats at weekends.

Mr. Skinner: I have no doubt that there are a few people—the fishermen to whom the hon. Gentleman referred, perhaps—who are of slender means. But in this project we are considering a proposal to build about 2,500 houses—the hon. Gentleman now says—but, only a fortnight ago according to the people who made representations to me and my hon. Friends, the figure was only 2,300, and shortly before that it was even less. It is


like the Brighton Marina. There are more flats and maisonettes being built with private moorings as each week goes by.

Mr. Gow: In a statement sent to the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved), I think on Thursday of last week, there were full details of this. The hon. Gentleman will see in that statement prepared by the promoters that the figure for the number of dwellings was given as 2,500, as I said.

Mr. Skinner: I made very careful notes at the time of the meeting. I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved) got the correct figures, too. No doubt they correspond with mine. We were told quite clearly that 2,300 flats and maisonettes would be built, half of which would have private moorings.
I want to answer the hon. Gentleman's other point about tht Duke of Devonshire not owning half of Eastbourne. Of course he does not. I was speaking metaphorically. But, speaking literally, I might make the point that he has plenty of County Limerick and quite substantial holdings in Yorkshire and the rest of Sussex, quite apart from his domain in Derbyshire. I do not suggest that under the Community Land Bill we expect to get back all that land, but it is a thought that we have to consider. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will also bear in mind that one of our reasons for putting down and pushing this motion is that the Community Land Bill is at present being discussed in this House and could to some extent countermand some of the proposals in this measure.

Mr. John Golding: Will my hon. Friend take note of the fact that "The Penguin Guide to Sussex, New Series", by F. A. Banks, refers to
…the modern town built on land owned largely by the Duke of Devonshire…".
That is a quite unambiguous statement. Perhaps my hon. Friend will address himself to that statement in what is an authoritative guide to Sussex.

Mr. Skinner: It would take rather a long time. In any event, I thought that my hon. Friend was about to discuss the Cavendish family and to refer to the fact

that the first one had his head chopped off by the peasants in 1381.

Mr. Gow: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. When we are considering the Eastbourne Harbour Bill, is it in order for the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) to refer to the manner of death suffered by ancestors of my noble Friend?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): It is not a matter contained in the Bill, but it may be that the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) should be allowed to expand his argument so that we may see where it is taking us.

Mr. Skinner: The analogy that I was about to draw was that this Bill, to some extent, was about grabbing. Whereas over the years the Cavendish family have grabbed land in all parts of the British Isles, on this occasion they are not so much grabbing land as grabbing the sea. Not satisfied with the many thousands of acres that they own up and down the country, they now bring a Bill before Parliament to take part of the sea.

Mr. Peter Rees: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In view of your recent ruling, will it be in order for us to discuss some of the exploits of the Skinner family at Clay Cross?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Before hon. Members go further in this matter, perhaps I might make one remark. It is that good temper and moderation are characteristics of parliamentary language. I think that we should confine ourselves to the matter of the Bill.

Mr. Skinner: I do not necessarily want to talk about my family, but if the hon. and learned Member for Dover and Deal (Mr. Rees) wishes me to, I could do so for about half an hour. However, I am certain that the rest of the House has not come to hear me do that.

Mr. William Hamilton: Tell us how much land they have.

Mr. Skinner: We have not got an acre between us. There are a lot of debts. I will not go into those, but certainly we would need a lot of land to write off all our debts.
As I was saying, this Bill is about taking over part of the nation's coastline, and this family who managed to get hold of a lot of land are now in the process of attempting to take over a substantial part of the area adjacent to Eastbourne which, I suppose is in the constituency of the hon. Member for Eastbourne. But who could argue about that? It is a relatively fine point.
Naturally, some of us have to make representations about matters of this kind. If the establishment is not in a position to stop Bills of this nature, it is our job to do something about it. A rather strange alliance had to be formed to try to stop it. It was not the easiest of formulae. I had to approach hon. Friends of mine with whom I have considerable differences on other matters—macro-economic matters, manifesto matters, and so on. But we were in accord about one subject. We were in accord about the fundamental principle of seeing to it, if we could, that the nation's resources were used in a way that would fit in with the general spectrum of things within the Labour Party—and that is difficult, anyway.
We then had to raise this question of a blocking motion so that this House, quite apart from whether or not it agreed with it, could for the first time hear what this Bill was about. It was slipping underneath the door. No one knew what was happening. Therefore, right hon. and hon. Members in all parts of the House should be grateful to us for having the good sense, even the nerve, to put down this blocking motion in order to push the promoters into explaining to the hon. Member for Eastbourne precisely what they were proposing to do within and outside his constituency.

Mr. Gow: I was very well aware of this proposal long before the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends put down their blocking motion. Some of us take a great deal of interest in what goes on in our constituencies. I was briefed fully about this proposal long before the hon. Gentleman tabled his motion.

Mr. Skinner: The hon. Gentleman is a relatively new Member. He came here in February or March of last year. He was elected at about the same time as

this measure began its merry way through the House. I have no doubt that for a time he will be extremely interested in all that is happening in Eastbourne, especially in relation to those of his friends in the Tory Party in Eastbourne. So I am not surprised that he has managed to get hold of a little information about this affair, just as some of his friends on the Eastbourne council seem to know quite a bit about it as well. However, the measure was not accepted unanimously, as he would have us believe and as he indicated in his speech, by the appropriate planning committee. That is not the case, and I shall report to the House on that matter shortly.
As I was saying, the House should be pleased about the effort that we have made to see to it that this whole project was ventilated in the House of Commons. One of the most surprising, and perhaps disappointing, features of the affair is a meeting which my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford and I had with the representatives of the promoters. We wanted the meeting because this is a novel scheme. We had not been involved before. I assumed that we would be given all the information, perhaps some of that which the hon. Gentleman has had. We met a number of people downstairs. One of the staggering things about it was that all they wanted to know was precisely what we were going to do. They were not terribly interested in telling us what the proposal was all about. They wanted to know to what lengths we were prepared to go.
My hon. Friend and I began to ask the relevant questions, such as how much the project would cost. It is supposed to be finished, according to the Bill, by 1984. What a year! When we asked that one, we got a complete blank. I noted that the hon. Gentleman tonight was not able to tell us what the total cost would be even at 1973, 1974 or 1975 prices. When we questioned the representatives more closely, we were able to ascertain that even for the initial minor development, on harbour works and so on, the cost would be £9 million at 1973 prices. Does the hon. Gentleman agree?

Mr. Gow: Yes. I agree precisely with the figure which the hon. Gentleman has quoted, except that it is slightly on the low side. The total cost of the harbour


works, technical investigations and so on at 1973 prices is £9,700,000. A letter was sent to the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved) on 26th June in which the figures were spelt out with some clarity.

Mr. Wellbeloved: Perhaps I might clear up the question of that letter. I assumed that, as a matter of natural courtesy, the promoters would have sent the same information to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) as they sent to me. Apparently that has not been the case.

Mr. Gow: I apologise. I am sorry.

Mr. Skinner: When I met the representatives a fortnight ago, I was told in no uncertain terms that the project would not cost £9 million but slightly less. Now, the information we ask for in relation to the initial development has also changed. That was the whole tenor of the discussion. All along the line, when we have tried to get away from vagueness and abstraction to talking about the scheme in principle, in detail and in costings, we have either received no answer at all or we have been promised answers some time later. I have had no communications with the representatives at all since then.
We asked them also about compensation. My hon. Friend correctly pointed out that there are many other property owners and tenants of all kinds in that immediate area. He asked about compensation in case of water level changes as a result of the development. They admitted that the water level would change. But when it came to the question of compensation, they did not want to know. The net result is that the answer to that question has not been given to us.
Now I come to the disadvantages of this scheme and why we want to stop it. I have referred to the scheme as exemplifying in some small way the situation of the economy generally. I have tried to indicate that one of Britain's problems is that we tend to want to resolve the matter in general but that when we come down to specifics we want to forget all about it and try to find some other excuse or answer. At least, that is the proposition put to us tonight by the hon. Gentleman.
I believe that, if we are concerned about the drift away from manufacturing industry into services, when a specific situation confronts us we must do something about it. The Tribune statement recently published pointed out that 750,000 jobs had been lost in manufacturing industry, to be replaced by only 250,000. The hon. Gentleman has told us that one of the things this project will do, quite apart from provision of the leisure activities, is to stop some manufacturing operations which are at present carried out—such as quarrying—from being continued.

Mr. Gow: The quarrying is continuing. After the quarrying of this part of the Crumbles has been completed, when all the gravel has been removed there, conversion will be made. It will be done only after extraction of all the minerals. The mineral extraction is continuing and will do so until the base is ready; then it will be converted.

Mr. Skinner: The hon. Gentleman is saying that for a short while—not until 1984; that is for sure—the manufacturing will continue to take place. A relatively small amount of extraction may be taking place, but it is nevertheless manufacturing industry. Thereafter it is to be replaced by service industry eventually. That is the point I am making.

Mr. Gow: The quarrying of all the available gravel will continue until the gravel is exhausted.

Mr. Skinner: But I am concerned about all the bye-laws written into the Bill and the ways in which the trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement will be in a position to do a lot of things, perhaps even to stop the quarrying to which the hon. Gentleman has referred. I have had some letters from constituents of the hon. Member who, unlike him, are concerned about the Bill and the prospect that quarrying and other forms of manufacturing will be stopped.

Mr. Gow: I hope that on reflection the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the charge about my interest in the Bill. I am deeply interested in it. As to the bye-laws, I would point out that no bye-laws can be made by the Eastbourne Harbour Company unless approved by the Secretary of State.

Mr. Skinner: One cannot be sure who the Secretary of State will be. That is one of the things that is worrying me. I am not saying that one need be worried now, but a future Secretary of State could be a lot like the members of the Eastbourne Planning Committee. He could be a member of the hon. Gentleman's party. He could be a member of the same party as the Duke of Devonshire who was once a Minister in the Harold Macmillan Government. Why should I, representing the other class, have any faith in a Secretary of State who will administer final jurisdiction over a matter like that? If I had continuing faith in Secretaries of State for the Environment I should not even be raising this matter. The Secretary of State for the Environment can stop the Bill anyway. However, it is because I am not satisfied that the Secretary of State for the Environment—whoever he might be—is likely to take the same view as I and my hon. Friends that I am speaking on the matter today. If that had been the case, the Channel Tunnel would still be proceeding. Some of my hon. Friends decided to take alternative action, and told the Secretary of State, as kindly as possible, that he was wrong.
Therefore, I hope that the hon. Gentleman appreciates that there might be a Secretary of State who is a member of his own party—he could be a member of the Walker clan, the Joseph clan or any other clan—but he could not guarantee that he would fit in with his economic or other policies. The hon. Gentleman must not get carried away and put his faith lock, stock and barrel in Secretaries of State of any Department. It is his job, as well as mine, to watch over the interests of his constituents even though in this case—

Mr. Ryman: Is my hon. Friend aware that the Duke of Devonshire—and his family, who own, amongst other properties, a small country house at Chatsworth with about 60 bedrooms—is very influential in the Conservative Party today as he was in the days of Mr. Macmillan? Moreover, in the event of a Conservative Government he would undoubtedly influence a Conservative Secretary of State for the Environment to bring about policies contrary to the views at present expressed by the mover of this motion?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I must draw to the attention of the hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Ryman) that criticisms of a Member of another House are permitted only in certain circumstances, only in connection with activities which he may have outside the other place.

Mr. Ryman: I am much obliged. I was not criticising a Member of the other House. I was describing him.

Mr. Gow: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It was within your hearing that the hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Ryman) said that my noble Friend might use his influence, and, the implication was, improperly. In view of your ruling, should not the hon. Gentleman withdraw his remarks?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I pointed out to the hon. Member for Blyth that criticism referring to a Member of another place in connection with his duties in that place was unparliamentary. The hon. Gentleman should couch his words with care.

Mr. Golding: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Surely the reference was to the Duke's position within the Conservative Party and not to his position in another place or in Government. It must be proper that we can make comments on the rôles that the dukes and the earls play in the upper echelons of the Conservative Party?

Mr. Ryman: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Your rebuke was addressed to me, so perhaps I should have an opportunity of answering it. The hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow), no doubt for understandable reasons, is far too sensitive about the subjects of Chatsworth and the Duke of Devonshire. I was not criticising the Duke of Devonshire for any performance in the other place. I was simply, as a matter of historic record, reciting the facts as acknowledged by the autobiography of another Conservative Member of Parliament, Mr. Harold Macmillan, about the part that the Duke of Devonshire played in the Conservative Government between 1951 and 1964. During those 13 years of Conservative misrule the Duke of Devonshire, according to Mr. Macmillan, had a substantial influence.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is correct insofar as the detail of what the hon. Gentleman said is concerned. However, I was giving a general warning to the hon. Gentleman so that we did not stray outside the rules of order.

Mr. Gow: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As you ruled that the words of the hon. Member for Blyth, in referring to my noble Friend, were unparliamentary, should he not withdraw his remarks?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I merely made it clear that we should be careful about where we are going. It was perfectly correct up to a point, but there was a danger that the hon. Gentleman might stray beyond the normal proprieties. We should leave the matter at that point and continue with the debate.

Mr. Ryman: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. A most serious criticism has been made of me and I wish to answer it. It is a criticism without foundation by—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Mr. Skinner.

Mr. Skinner: I was about to turn to the question of the planning committee's decision. The hon. Member for Eastbourne had given us the impression that the decision taken by the planning committee was one in which the "old pals together" seemed to agree and announced to the awaiting Press, and especially to the Chatsworth Settlement, that their plans had gone through without any demur. According to the Eastbourne Herald of 1st March, a Tory said that there was a danger that if development other than that of the harbour itself went ahead first, the developers might suddenly say they could not finish the whole job.
I do not want to draw an exact parallel with the Brighton Marina but on examination of that project it is clear that some of the propositions advanced at the time that was going through the House were substantially altered with the passage of time. Strangely, the Brighton Marina scheme was a £9 million scheme as well at the beginning. Of course £9 million represented in real terms considerably more. However, at the time it was a £9 million scheme, and it was made clear that there were to be only 330 flats and

houses for the yachtsmen. Those yachtsmen are part of the fast-growing industry to which the hon. Member for Eastbourne referred. However, after the Bill left this House and because there was overall planning permission under Section 52—which this Bill also has in relation to local planning permission—it was then possible, by various manœuvres within the Brighton council chamber, or wherever the decisions took place in Sussex, to change from 330 flats to 1,450 flats in the space of a year.
However, what is more important from our point of view is that the hon. Member for Eastbourne referred to some of those amenities which might attract the attention of some of his more moderate, rather than extremist constituents. Hon Members who were present would have been enamoured of the possibility of knowing that a primary school was to be built and the land was to be given free of charge by the Chatsworth Settlement. They would have been pleased to have heard about some of the other amenities that are contained within the Bill. None of them is in the initial project and none is to be developed within 27 months after the project has begun. All of these so-called amenities for the moderate majority of the people of Eastbourne were not included initially, neither were they at Brighton.
What happened at Brighton? The proposals for building a boat store, a dinghy yard and some of the other entertainments were dropped. The proposal for a cinema for workers was also dropped. A bowling alley and various items of that kind were dropped as well. They are not now included in the Brighton Marina project. I suspect that the proposers of this Bill— the Tory Eastbourne Council, the Tory District Council and the Tory Member of Parliament for Eastbourne—will have so wide and generalised powers in the Bill that they will weld together. If by chance they happen to have a Tory Secretary of State as well, what will then happen to the Bill? What would happen to some of the nice things about which the hon. Gentleman told us earlier?

Mr. Gow: I cannot, of course speak with knowledge about the Brighton project, but I know that from the start of the plans for the development at Eastbourne there were provisions for a school


and other recreational facilities. I have an extract from the minutes of the planning committee of as long ago as 18th November 1971 in which reference was made to educational purposes. Therefore, there is no question of this being slipped in later.
I should like to make one other correction. The hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) will be glad to know that the Eastbourne Borough Council is controlled not by the Conservative Party but by the Liberal Party.

Mr. Skinner: I made it clear from the beginning, as the hon. Gentleman is aware, that by and large I regard those two parties, or all Opposition parties, as representing the same interests. It is true that on occasions there is a marginal difference between them and it is sometimes shown at elections. But by and large the Tory Party gets most of its income from big business and the Liberal Party gets nearly all of its income from big business. Indeed, they are attempting to get even more from big business by sending round their treasurers to try to win more money and support for proportional representation, which in my eyes is just the same. So when I talk about Eastbourne Borough Council representing those interests it does not matter whether it is composed of Tories Liberals, Ulster Unionists, Scottish Nationalists or whoever they may be.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact that we are not having a series of election addresses. Could we return to the Bill?

Mr. Stephen Ross: The hon. Gentleman, who has referred to the Liberal Party, might be aware that we had a dispute in the Isle of Wight, about which his hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) will know, regarding a harbour project. I have sat here for over an hour listening to the proposition of the scheme and I have followed the hon. Member's speech closely. If he has any evidence that there is opposition to the Eastbourne harbour scheme from local residents, parish councillors or borough councillors, may we have it now?

Mr. Skinner: Yes. I was just coming to the report in the Eastbourne Herald

of 1st March which gives a description of the scheme. This report is not likely to have been written by a Marxist. The journalist, Robert Wells, even stripping off everything else, says that not only is a Tory worried about the prospect of developers leaving the scheme high and dry, but a Labour man is worried. I am surprised that there is one there. But a Labour man, Don Ranger—not Sam Taylor—said that more research should be carried out into the scheme. He said that with over 2,000 dwellings—it was only 2,000 at that time; it is now 2,500—there will be more expense with road works.
The hon. Member for Eastbourne wanted to leave the House with the impression that all the infrastructure costs relating to roads and all the other facilities would be met by the developers. But the hon. Gentleman cannot guarantee that the spin-off will be borne by the developers. Indeed the developers, when we met them, would not even give us a guarantee about compensation for those poor people living close to the proposed development who run the risk of having their homes flooded as a result of the raising of the water level.
When the developers refuse to tell me and my hon. Friends that they are prepared to consider compensation, why should I take it from the hon. Gentleman, who has a brief from the representatives, that all the infrastructure costs arising from the development will be paid by the Chatsworth Settlement? Of course not. The hon. Gentleman cannot measure what will happen. Neither he nor the developers can tell us at what rate of progress the development will take place.

Mr. Golding: Unfortunately I was unable to attend the meeting with the developers. I am confused as to whether the water level is to be raised or lowered. Can my hon. Friend explain this to me, because it will have some significance for my arguments later?

Mr. Skinner: My hon. Friend missed a very important meeting. The Tribune representatives met these people in a downstairs room. I have news for my hon. Friend, who wanted to be present but could not be there because of other pressing engagements. He will be interested to know that the developers, the engineers and everyone who could


be remotely connected with the Bill could not tell us whether it would be 1 metre, 2 metres or half an inch. They could not say because, in my view, they are interested only in getting the harbour development through. Their main interest is to see that houses associated with the development are built, not houses for the 5,000 people on the waiting list in Eastbourne. I shall refer to that matter later. The developers are interested only in making sure that the rate of return on the project is sufficient to warrant the investment that they are putting into it.
We are told again and again that one of the main problems facing this country —everybody talks about it—is that investment is going in the wrong places. Most of it is going abroad. It has been going to the Common Market for many years. Yet when we have about £50 million floating about—in private hands, I agree —what is happening to it? What is happening to the people who waved the flag? What happens when they have £50 million to spend? Do they put it in industry where we can get a spin-off of jobs? Of course not. They take part in the drift away from manufacturing industry by ploughing it into service industries.

Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Why?

Mr. Skinner: Why, darling? For the good reason that there is more money to be made at the end of it. They are interested only in what is in their pockets at the end of the day. That is why, apart from any other consideration, my hon. Friends and I have a public duty to oppose the Bill. It would serve the interests of some Opposition Members to oppose the Bill on those grounds. Does the Liberal want to come in?

Mr. Stephen Ross: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I am still waiting for the evidence for which I asked. Will the hon. Gentleman direct his attention to the fact that in the building industry at the moment there are said to be 150,000 out of work and over eight weeks' supply of bricks—many millions of bricks? Is not that a manufacturing industry? Would not some of that material and labour be put to good use if the Bill went through?

Mr. Skinner: It would if it were a continuing process. We have been told by

the hon. Member for Eastbourne that as a result of the project 1,000 jobs will be available from 1984. These people will be employed not in building houses but in service industries to provide increased leisure for many people.
What I am saying is that we as Socialists have to make up our minds on this issue. Do we want to provide an extra 1,000 jobs for leisure activities at a time when the nation is supposedly on its knees, or at any rate the system is? Do we want to provide another 1,000 jobs in service industries where there will be a greater spin-off and the dynamism that will be built into the project will provide even more jobs? The hon. Member for the Isle of Wight is saying that we should build as many marinas as we like because, for a short time, to do so would employ a few more bricklayers. My planning does not carry me in that direction.

Mr. Ron Thomas: Does my hon. Friend agree that the majority of the jobs will be of a seasonal nature? One of the major employment problems in this area, as with other seaside resorts, is that it is seasonal work which throws a heavy burden on the social services in terms of payment and other ways after the workers have been exploited by Tory Members for a few months.

Mr. Skinner: This is the old philosophy of the Tory Party. My hon. Friend will, I am sure, agree that their philosophy is to make a fast buck, and they are not interested in what happens afterwards.

Mr. Stephen Ross: Will the hon. Gentleman take it from me that those who have invested money in marinas in the Isle of Wight in the last few years wish that they had never done so? I invite the hon. Gentleman to come to my constituency. If he does, he will see how much money has been lost in marinas over the last few years.

Mr. Skinner: I have not been to the Isle of Wight. In fact, I have not been out of the country since I have been in this place. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, notwithstanding some of the temporary and minor problems that some of the developers are experiencing with their marinas, we are being saddled with the prospect not of one marina at Eastbourne but of another 29 scattered


around the South and East Coasts of Great Britain. I am suggesting that we cannot afford to allow the Bill to go through because it will give the green light to the other 29 marinas and other prospective developers who are interested in providing leisure facilities along the South Coast. That is bound to happen if we allow the Bill to go through.
The hon. Member for Eastbourne put his finger on it when he said that this is a growth industry. Any growth industry in a capitalist system is bound to get a better rate of return than one would get in a declining industry or one that has to be assisted. That is the basis upon which the capitalist system works. If there is a demand for marinas, money will go into them. It is our job as Socialists to recognise that this money will go into a project that will not provide the results that we think are ideal and important for our society. That is why we are against the Bill.

Mr. Gow: One of the reasons why I want the Bill—the hon. Gentleman put into my mouth words which I did not use —is so that fishermen in my constituency and in the neighbouring areas can have a port and a haven from which to operate. I am anxious that those who want to enjoy leisure-time activities should have the opportunity to do so. Using small boats is not a rich man's game, and the philosophy of the Tory Party is to extend the area of choice and meet what to me is a genuine need.

Mr. Skinner: If the hon. Gentleman truly represented all his constituents he would be concerned about the young family to which I have referred and the plight which it disclosed to the local paper some time ago. They get £30 a week, and £17 of that goes for rent. At present there are 5,000 people on the waiting list at Eastbourne and in the adjoining district of Wealden. It is those 5,000 people whom we have to represent because Tory Members are not interested in them. What the hon. Member for Eastbourne and people like him—and this includes the Liberals—are interested in are the yacht owners who can buy a £50,000 house with a private mooring. There are 2,300 of these people, and it is with them that Tory Members are concerned.

Mr. Stephen Ross: What are your Government doing about the housing problem? Absolutely nothing!

Mr. Golding: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) at liberty to ask you what your Government are going to do about the housing problem?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I think that the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) made a slight procedural slip. It is clear what he really meant.

Mr. Skinner: I repeat that 5,000 people have their names on the council waiting list at Eastbourne, and yet the same council and the developers, the trustees of the Chatsworth Estate, have the gall and audacity to come before Parliament and ask for the opportunity to build 2,300 houses, flats and maisonettes at £50,000 a time with private moorings so that those who already have a roof over their heads can have another home to use at the weekend. This is what the Bill is all about. Those concerned here do not look after the people in need of houses. They look after the people now represented by hon. Members on the Tory and Liberal Benches.
I think that the situation is summed up by another of the constituents of the hon. Member for Eastbourne who wrote to me because he is concerned about this matter. He is concerned not only about rights of way but about some of the reasons for this proposal. He feels strongly about this project, and perhaps he exemplifies the kind of people about whom we should be concerned. He says:
Originally two friends of mine and myself went to view the proposed plans for Eastbourne marina.
He puts the case in better langauge than I can use. This is an Eastbourne man who is concerned about his town and its development.

Mr. Bob Cryer: May I place it on the record that the representative of the Liberal Party, the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross), who is so concerned about representations from local residents, has left the Chamber at the very time that my hon. Friend is giving the sort of evidence for which he was asking?

Mr. Skinner: That is typical of the Liberal Party.

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: He found the hon. Gentleman's speech so disgusting that he could not stand it any longer.

Mr. Skinner: I do not know where the hon. Gentleman has gone. There is just a chance that he has gone out to get a second mortgage. It might cost him 280 per cent. if he goes in the wrong door. But that is a different story.
The two friends to whom I was referring thought that they would be told about this exciting and beneficial addition to the town. They were disappointed. At first, they encountered tactics to stop them even seeing the plans. I quote:
Finally, when we pressed the matter and gained entry, we were even more alarmed to hear a spokesman"—
I do not know whether he is present today or whether he was one of the people that I and my hon. Friend met—
say, 'We do not want the general public cluttering up the marina and launching areas.'
That was what one of the spokesmen said—

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: So you say.

Mr. Skinner: It is all here.

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: And you believe it.

Mr. Skinner: The letter goes on:
I asked what they would do about sightseers and he replied, 'Well, we will have the right to make many of our own byelaws'"—
on some of the things that I mentioned—
'so that, when you are in our house, you will do as we say.".
These are the exact quotes of the proposers, retaliating when the correspondent who has written to me, who is resident in Eastbourne, along with one of his friends, asked some relatively innocent and, in my view, proper questions.

Mr. Gow: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us who it was who is alleged to have said this to his correspondent?

Mr. Skinner: I shall be in touch with the correspondent who has written to me and, privately, I suppose I am at liberty to let the hon. Member know who it is as well.

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Why not the House?

Mr. Skinner: As for the House, I have not consulted the gentleman who wrote to me—

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Why not?

Mr. Skinner: —so to that extent it would be unfair to mention his name at this stage. But I am prepared naturally to give it to his own Member of Parliament so that the hon. Gentleman can go to see his constituent and perhaps hear a similar story to the one that I have heard.

Mr. Golding: Is it not important for my hon. Friend to reconsider? The person who has written to him may be a tenant. It would be utterly wrong, if that person were a tenant or in any way beholden to the Chatsworth Estate or the Duke of Devonshire, to reveal his name.

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: They have their rights too.

Mr. Golding: My hon. Friend, as a miner, should know of the evils of victimisation in this country of one class by another.

Mr. Skinner: Mr. Skinnerrose—

Mr. Jonathan Aitken: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Surely it is completely out of order to make these allegations that the Chatsworth Estate would victimise someone because he wrote to a Member of Parliament. That is really outrageous.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not in fact a point of order. It is a matter outside the scope of this House.

Mr. Skinner: I cannot be sure what they will do. I have no experience of their tactics. As my hon. Friend said, I have experience in another sphere. I know the victimisation that my own father suffered for 50 years. To that extent, I fully understand the considerations that my hon. Friend has placed before the House. I will, as he suggests, not give this information publicly.

Mr. Cryer: Is it not true that when the Labour Party puts forward proposals to end tied cottages on agricultural holdings, of which the Chatsworth Estate must have many, they are opposed tooth and nail by hon. Members opposite? It is not true that people who live in tied cottages feel very strongly that they


are in a vulnerable position and that that might apply in this case?

Mr. Skinner: Of course that might apply—

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Will the hon. Gentleman recall that, according to the Tavistock Report, the majority of occupiers of agricultural tied cottages had no complaint in the matter? They know very well that in serving the stock and the farms that they love, they are at no disadvantage in occupying a tied cottage, although miners and others may well be.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Mr. Deputy Speaker rose—

Mr. Skinner: With respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, perhaps I can assist you. I get the impression that we are beginning to stray somewhat, and it is no fault of mine.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Member and the Chair are in agreement on that point.

Mr. Skinner: But there is a lot to be said about the Bill. I think you will agree, Sir, that I have kept within the fairly generous bounds of the Bill. It would be wrong if we were to waste time discussing matters like tied cottages, to which the hon. Lady referred. We all know that we shall almost certainly be dealing with that matter in the next Session.

Mr. Ron Thomas: I take my hon. Friend's point. However, would he not expect the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) to answer the points in that letter? I agree with my hon. Friend; I do not think that the letter should be passed on to the hon. Member for Eastbourne, but I think that he should answer the points raised in it.

Mr. Skinner: I think we should get on. Some of my hon. Friends want to say a few words about this.

Mr. Gow: I have two points. First, before the hon. Member decided to read that letter to the House, did he make inquiries and check the story which is given in it? Secondly—here I agree with the hon. Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Thomas)—if the hon. Gentleman had referred the matter to me, of course

I should have been only too glad to have discussed it with him. Will he kindly tell me about this afterwards so that I can check the matter up with my constituent?

Mr. Skinner: I can see that I have touched the hon. Member on a very sore point. The fact is that the hon. Gentleman's constituent wrote to me for a very good reason. He knew that I was trying to stop the Eastbourne Harbour Bill from proceeding through this place. He also knew that the hon. Member—his own Member—was trying to get it through. That was apparent from some of the comments the hon. Gentleman had made in response to some of my comments. So my correspondent naturally wrote to the person with whom he thought it necessary to communicate to get his point of view across.

Mr. Michael Marshall: I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman is making a point in relation to the particular situation, but will he not confirm that he has had correspondence with a number of people from other constituencies and that it is not his practice to refer these matters to the Member of Parliament concerned? While the hon. Member is on his feet doing his famous act as the most famous angry young man in the world, perhaps he will put the record straight in that respect.

Mr. Ryman: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken, whose constituency I cannot name because I have forgotten it—I presume that the hon. Member knows it—to make these disgraceful allegations against my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), who has been barracked and harassed by repeated and unjustified frivolous interventions from hon. Members opposite?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Chair ruled earlier that the characteristics of the House are good temper and moderation.

Mr. Skinner: I know that if I run into serious trouble, from whatever quarter—

Mr. Golding: We will look after my hon. Friend.

Mr. Skinner: I can turn to my hon. Friends, of course, but I can turn to the Chair and I have no doubt that if things got exceedingly hot I would be in a position to seek some measure of assistance from the Chair.
I was going on to refer to the letter which the hon. Member's constituent sent to me. It talks about the Brighton Marina development. The constituent said:
If the construction of the Brighton Marina serves to provide a lesson it would clearly show that latitude to deviate"—
that is one of the proposals within the Bill, to which my hon. Friend will be referring later—
from proposed constraints is blatantly exploited to profit by the construction of luxury hotels and weekend flatlets at the expense of public amenities.
That is precisely the point I have been making. With the passage of time many things can be dropped and other things put in their place, as was the case with the Brighton Marina project, because of the deviations that were allowed within that Bill and which are allowed in this Bill as well.
My correspondent also talks about the fact that a large area of land will be lost, land that is at present natural beach. We are told by the hon. Member for Eastbourne that according to his value judgment this area of beach is worthless. How can it be?

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: My hon. Friend did not say that.

Mr. Skinner: It is a question of what any particular group of people see in such areas. How are we to decide? How are the proposers to decide that because an area is somewhat desolate it has no value? Perhaps there are many people who visit that area week after week bird-watching or doing one of many other things, who spend a very pleasant time in that area and who will be deprived of whatever pleasures they get in that area as a result of the various constraints that are to be placed upon it.
One thing that the hon. Member's constituent says is that as a result of taking away this natural beach, at the same time the value of the duke's land will increase many-fold. We all know that. He says:

The Duke is a professional man employing professional staff … when I put questions to principal members of the local planning authority, I was alarmed at how little they seemed to know about the situation.
That refers to the Eastbourne Planning Authority members. He goes on to say:
It is my opinion that once the concrete has been poured, legal issues lodged … and the Duke obviously knows the value of time gained by such stalling attitudes, Eastbourne will have lost a considerable area of coast, visited only by an exclusive few.

Mr. Peter Viggers: Mr. Peter Viggers (Gosport)rose—

Mr. Skinner: He goes on to say:
At the same time the value of our outlying land will be forced up, and put even further beyond the reach of the ordinary family.

Mr. Viggers: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Skinner: Not until I have finished reading this letter.
The hon. Member's constituent sums up the situation in a way in which most of us would sum it up:
At a time when national unity is a phrase much in use"—
I could almost have written this letter myself—
how can one really expect someone who has to labour for their living not to feel upset when so much can be seen to be openly exploited by such people? I am sure that taxing property speculators will not provide the revenue to get the country out of the woods.

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Neither can the Labour Government.

Mr. Skinner: The letter goes on to say:
I am sure that the feeling of natural justice resulting from the clamp down on speculators would make a tremendous difference to the attitudes of a person whose biggest single outgoing is to maintain the roof over their heads. It would also put an end to the trend to invest in property instead of industry which gives us our real wealth … if the Duke has other plans he must be refused planning permission and reminded that he can keep himself and the country by investing in new machinery for industry. I enclose photo copies of extracts of the Eastbourne Herald …
That was written by one of the constituents of the hon. Member for Eastbourne several weeks ago. I told him that I would be raising this point in the debate. This to a large extent sums up


many of the reasons why we are opposing the Bill. We oppose it on the question of investment. We oppose it on the question of the drift from manufacturing industries to service industries. We oppose it on the question of the availability of resources, of men and materials, whether it be public or private investment.
I think that apart from environmental arguments, something could be done with this land. If the Duke of Devonshire, benevolent despot that he supposedly is—

Mr. Gow: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the hon. Member to refer to the duke in those terms?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Member must be temperate in his description of Members of another place. He is going too far.

Mr. Gow: Further to that point of order—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will amend his expression.

Mr. Skinner: I am prepared to withdraw the "benevolent" bit.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: No. I think that the hon. Member would be well advised to withdraw both parts and to continue with his speech.

Mr. Skinner: On the basis that one of the Duke of Devonshire's antecedents—I think it was the second Cavendish—was the man responsible for putting down Watt Tyler, just after the peasants' revolt, and he got £40 a year for doing it from the then king, I am prepared to rephrase it and to say "a descendant of a benevolent despot"—I beg pardon, I mean "despot". That took some working out, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Therefore, it is on these grounds that we believe that the Bill should be opposed. If there is a desire to do something for the social good of the area, why not build a gigantic workers' convalescent home? It need not be just for miners. It could be for pneumoconiosis, railwaymen and others. Perhaps the duke could be reminded of the many different types of workers in his home county of Derby-

shire. Many of those could well spend a month on the Eastbourne coast. If this area is to be developed and something is to be done for the nation, that kind of proposal might be acceptable.
Labour Members—I hope—have not been sent here to accept, as we shall certainly have to accept, certain measures to be brought forward next week. Some will oppose them, some will not. If we are to have to accept the kind of argument that will be put in this House about workers having to suffer wage cuts or, alternatively, public expenditure cuts, and if it means, for instance, that the school at Whitwell in my constituency will not continue as a result of these cuts, quite apart from whether that is carried through —anyway, we cannot, according to our philosophy, tolerate a project of this kind. It has nothing to do with whether private or public money is involved. The fact is that the men and the resources could be used in a different fashion.
Labour Members have to acknowledge that if we are to resolve the problems in the economy it is no use talking, as many economists on these benches talk, in totally general terms. We have to be concerned when we are faced with specific issues. This, like the Channel Tunnel, is one of the specifics. Our job tonight is to stop it.

8.47 p.m.

Mr. Jonathan Aitken: I should like, briefly, to try to cool down the flames of class warfare coming from the Labour Benches by advancing one or two practical arguments in support of the Bill, which has so ably and cogently been moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow). Unlike the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), who comes from a landlocked constituency, I have the honour to represent a constituency which is on the coast and has had the benefit for hundreds of years of an excellent and flourishing harbour.
The main harbour in my constituency is Ramsgate Harbour, which was created by Royal Charter from George IV—someone even more privileged than the Duke of Devonshire now is. He is lucky that he did not have the hon. Member for Bolsover to oppose him.
Ramsgate Harbour has brought definite benefit to the community of my constituency. The main benefits are jobs. The


harbour today, either directly or indirectly creates some 200 or 300 jobs. It also brings the benefit of a fishing fleet which is operating in the same coastal waters as the putative fishing fleet from the putative harbour of Eastbourne. It also gives a safe haven to some 150 small boats, many of which are operated by people of modest means and not at all the rich plutocrats presented by the hon. Member for Bolsover. Ramsgate Harbour also operates two lifeboats which have a proud record of lifesaving. I do not doubt that the total of 150 rescues over the year would also be equalled by a lifeboat operating from Eastbourne Harbour.
Above all, the harbour at Ramsgate brings an enormous visible and invisible benefit to the prosperity of the town in terms of trade, indirect business and tourism.
I entirely support the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne when he said that a harbour of this kind in Eastbourne could do much to correct population imbalance. So many of these coastal towns in the South-East are in grave danger of becoming the geriatric wards of Britain. This is the long-term trend. Unless some sort of light operations on the coast are developed in order to bring young people into the area, the outlook is bleak from the point of view of population imbalance.
I think that I have shown just one or two brief arguments, why, in a community which is not particularly dissimilar from that of Eastbourne, a harbour has brought enormous social benefits to my constituency. As a result, the harbour is very popular with all sections of the community—not least, incidentally, with the East Kent mining community living in Ramsgate, who much enjoy boating and fishing.
Perhaps the greatest weakness of the case presented by the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), in so far as he presented a case at all, was that he failed to produce any item of credible evidence that there was any measurable number of people of any section of the community who were opposed to the Eastbourne harbour being created. He completely avoided answering the questions of the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) as to where the opposi-

tion was coming from. The inference must be that it does not exist anywhere other than in a tightly-knit group of politically motivated Members of Parliament. As regards Eastbourne, there seems to be no opposition. Hon. Members on the Government side of the House are imposing their selfish will on the people of Eastbourne.

Mr. Ryman: As a Member who represents a constituency which has a successful harbour which cries out for investment and development, may I ask the hon. Gentleman, in the course of his excellent speech, to deal with this specific point? He says, among other things, that no evidence has been adduced in this debate to prove opposition to the objects stated by the promoters of the Bill. Surely he would concede that quite apart from specific evidence of opposition, there is a general duty upon Members of this House to safeguard the public interest, whether or not the public interest has been articulately stated by people living within the Eastbourne constituency. Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that there is a residuary duty upon hon. Members to safeguard the public interest whether or not specific opponents have come out within his constituency?

Mr. Aitken: I would not concede any such thing. I think that the people of Eastbourne, the borough council and the East Sussex County Council have exercised their public duties perfectly responsibly, and they support the Bill. The only opposition I have heard from the Government benches tonight has been mischievous opposition. I believe that it is based on the worse possible form of the politics of envy.
As I have listened tonight to the comedy show produced by the Dad's Army of the Tribune Group, as they perform one after another, I have kept asking myself what their motives are for wrecking this Bill, which does so much good to Eastbourne by creating a safe haven for fishing boats and a harbour which will benefit the community so much. Their motives can be summed up by the words "They do not like dukes".
We have all heards of Reds under the bed, but dukes on the seabed are a new form of paranoia. It is no reason for denying Eastbourne its harbour, its fishing fleet, its lifeboat service and the


whole range of benefits so ably mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne which this community will derive from the Bill.
The wrecking tactics we have seen tonight may be regarded by some people

Question accordingly negatived.

SUPPLY

Again considered.

Postponed Proceeding on Question, That this House do now adjourn, resumed.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING (SCOTLAND) (S.I., 1975, No. 908)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 73A (Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments).

as amusing. I believe that they are a grave abuse of Parliament and parliamentary time, and that they are beneath contempt.

Question put, That the Bill, as amended, be now considered:—

The House divided: Ayes 45, Noes 66.

Division No. 249.]
AYES
[8.55 p.m.


Biggs-Davison, John
Kilfedder, James
Rifkind, Malcolm


Boscawen, Hon Robert
King, Evelyn (South Dorset)
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)


Brittan, Leon
Lawrence,Ivan
Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)


Brotherton, Michael
Le Marchant, Spencer
Sims, Roger


Budgen, Nick
Marshall, Michael (Arundel)
Steel, David (Roxburgh)


Bulmer, Esmond
Mawby, Ray
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Mayhew, Patrick
Stradling Thomas, J.


Durant, Tony
Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)
Taylor, R. (Croydon NW)


Fox, Marcus
Montgomery, Fergus
Townsend, Cyril D.


Fry, Peter
Neave, Airey
Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)


Hooson, Emlyn
Nelson, Anthony
Wakeham, John


Hurd, Douglas
Normanton, Tom
Younger, Hon George


Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)
Onslow, Cranley



Jessel, Toby
Parkinson, Cecil
TELLERS FOR THE AYES


Jones, Arthur (Daventry)
Pattie, Geoffrey
Mr. Ian Gow and


Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine
Penhaligon, David
Mr. Jonathan Aitken




NOES


Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)
Hunter, Adam
Ryman, John


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)
Sandelson, Neville


Booth, Albert
John, Brynmor
Skinner, Dennis


Boothroyd, Miss Betty
Johnson, James (Hull West)
Snape, Peter


Bray, Dr Jeremy
Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Spriggs, Leslie


Canavan, Dennis
Judd, Frank
Stoddart, David


Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)
Loyden, Eddie
Stott, Roger


Coleman, Donald
McElhone, Frank
Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
McNamara, Kevin
Thorne, Stan (Preston South)


Craigen, J. M. (Maryhill)
Madden, Max
Torney, Tom


Cunningham, Dr J. (Whiteh)
Marks, Kenneth
Urwin, T. W.


Dalyell, Tam
Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)


Dunn, James A.
Maynard, Miss Joan
Ward, Michael


Eadie, Alex
Mikardo, Ian
Wellbeloved, James


English, Michael
Newens, Stanley
Whitlock, William


Evans, John (Newton)
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley
Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)


Ewing, Harry (Stirling)
Pavitt, Laurie
Wise, Mrs Audrey


George, Bruce
Prescott, John
Woof, Robert


Grant, George (Morpeth)
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Richardson, Miss Jo



Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)
Roderick, Caerwyn
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Rodgers, George (Chorley)
Mr. Bob Cryer and


Hughes. Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)
Rooker, J. W.
Mr. John Golding.


Hughes, Mark (Durham)

That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) (New Town of Glenrothes) (Special Development) Order 1975 (S.I., 1975, No. 908), dated 21st May 1975, a copy of which was laid before this House on 5th June, be annulled.—[Mr. William Hamilton.]

Question agreed to.

To be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of Her Majesty's House hold.

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Coleman.]

CLYDESIDE

9.6 p.m.

Mr. Frank McElhone: I wish to raise the problem of urban deprivation in Clydeside. Through the courtesy of Mr. Speaker I have had the opportunity of doing so on previous occasions, when I have sought to describe the gross and terrible unemployment and bad housing which existed in that area during the period of the last Conservative Government. I wish on this occasion to describe to the Government the depressing picture of the city today. Many attempts have been made by hon. Members to get something done about the tragic situation in the city during the last four years. [Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): Order. I cannot hear the hon. Member, and I must ask for silence.

Mr. McElhone: I understand that this question will be discussed in the Scottish Estimates debate on Thursday morning, and I hope that the Conservatives will not try then to make political capital out of the issue at the Government's expense. When they were in Government they had a deplorable record in dealing with the situation in Glasgow. I and certain of my hon. Friends served on the city council in Glasgow when it was Conservative-controlled. The Tory record in dealing with bad housing and unemployment in the city was deplorable. In addition, 11 members of the Scottish National Party sat as councillors, and a check of the city council minutes would show that on many occasions they voted with the Conservatives to deprive many areas of adequate housing and social facilities. In particular, a community centre in my constituency of the Gorbals was dropped because the SNP and the Conservatives joined forces against it.

Mr. Malcolm Rifkind: Is the hon. Member aware that the Labour Party has controlled Glasgow and most of the West of Scotland for virtually the whole of the last 50 years? If blame is to be apportioned, is it not at least fair for his party to accept a part of it?

Mr. McElhone: Labour Governments have not been without blame in this situa-

tion. However, the Labour Party has made bold attempts, even during periods of Tory rule, to deal with these problems. It was, however, under a grave handicap because of the magnitude of the problem in the city. Even the former Prime Minister, Mr. Harold Macmillan, described Glasgow as having the worst situation in Western Europe. The former Conservative Secretary of State for Scotland, now in another place, made stirring speeches about clearing Glasgow's slums, but, unfortunateley, did nothing when the Conservatives were in power from 1970 to 1974.
Environmental grants were introduced by a previous Labour Government in 1969, under the Housing (Scotland) Act of that year. The Housing (Scotland) Act 1974 did a great deal with the provision of improvement grants.
Housing and urban problems in Glasgow are a complex of interrelated issues. We shall never tackle the problems of homelessness, overcrowding, lack of choice and environmental mess unless we understand that underlying this desperately sad position are economic factors. That is a fact of life that many of us on the Labour Benches know all too well.
The recent report of the Department of the Environment indicated that of the 121 worst areas in Great Britain, Glasgow had 115. We have not been short of plans or schemes to tackle this long-term problem. There was the consultative document on the Scottish Development Agency, which spoke, in paragraph 14, about the urgent problems facing Glasgow. There were also the West Central Scotland Plan and the Glasgow areas and needs report by the previous Glasgow Corporation. We have no shortage of ideas, but perhaps we are somewhat short of idealism in tackling the problem, which has bedevilled the city of Glasgow for so long.
Constant attacks on the city of Glasgow by the media, including the Press, constitute a knocking campaign which has resulted in many of the people who have to come to Glasgow—through the transfer of defence jobs, for example—being opposed to coming. The Scotsman reported last Wednesday that the Society of Civil Servants had said that its members would not be compelled to come to


Glasgow, and that if an attempt was made to compel them to come they would take industrial action. That shows an attitude towards Glasgow that is not helpful to the city in regard to job opportunity.
We cannot say too often that our cultural provision is second to none among large cities in the United Kingdom. Our parks and recreational facilities surpass those of most comparable areas. We have thousands of first-class houses, both private and municipal, which would be a credit to any local authority.
But, despite the natural protestations of our city fathers—protestations in which I joined when I was honoured to be one of those city fathers—against the attacks by the media and other people, we must acknowledge that we have a considerable number of reservoirs of urban decay and deprivation that do us no credit. These reservoirs of economically and socially disadvantaged people are too often starkly revealed by the coughing or whimpering of a child in a very damp tenement, its lungs crippled by bronchitis, or the nervous tension which shows so often on the face of the mother on the housing estate who is under tremendous harassment from her children because of lack of the proper facilities that should be provided in such areas.
As a former councillor in the city, and a Member of the House for five years, I take some share of the blame. The absence of those facilities and the misery that that absence creates constitute a form of social violence which is often very dangerous if it is not dealt with in time. We have to accept that the burden from which these young people suffer is often such that they are one step away from the courts of law. That is all too often the fate of many of our young people, particularly in the housing estates today. This desperately sad situation accusingly confronts our conscience and our lack of interest as politicians representing the city of Glasgow in particular and Scotland in general.
It is wrong to say that the problem is mainly one of bad housing. We have this strange enigma that, with hundreds of slums in the very worst condition and 40,000 people on the waiting list of the Glasgow Corporation housing department at the same time several hundred

post-war houses are lying empty because no one will take them. That is a situation that defies logic. Why will people stay in houses with rats, with outside toilets, and with dampness jeopardising their health and their children's health, refusing to take a post-war council house? The reason stems, in my opinion, from the lack of community that is too often evident in some of our council estates.
I should not like to think that the idea will go out from this debate that I am condemning every council estate belonging to Glasgow Corporation. We have some excellent council estates, and the people in them are a credit to the city of Glasgow as council tenants. But we have to accept that in this time of stress there is a hunger for community within families, and the yearning for that community is often explained by the fact that people are prepared to stay in the old tenements as against taking the offer of council houses available the very next day from the new Glasgow council.
What we need—and we are privileged in having the Scottish housing Minister here tonight—is a combination of support from various Government Departments. If we take the economic factor first, all too often, as the Department of the Environment report shows, the people who live in these areas tend to be the lowest paid and to have the highest number of unemployed within their midst. This is why I welcome, particularly for the young and the families of these disadvantaged people, the chance that will be provided with the new job opportunities created by the Government's plan mentioned in the debate last Wednesday.
But we have to recognise that many of these young people are unskilled. Therefore, I would hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will direct my plea to the Department of Employment to encourage training and re-training facilities, especially among the young people within the area that I am talking about, to give them the chance to prepare for the job opportunities being provided in excellent form by the Government.
This would mean a substantial addition to the present staff of the Department of Employment to make sure that the opportunities that can be provided with training and re-training are made available at the earliest opportunity.
What is also needed—I hope the Minister will respond to this plea—is that the urban deprivation unit in St. Andrew's House should be brought into the city of Glasgow. If anything stands out as a failure of the present local authority structure, it is the fact that the social work department, the housing department, the education department, the transport department and the health department seem to work in isolation. We want these urban action units to come into operation, drawing the different departments together and making them one united force to provide a blanket coverage of the needs of these areas.
I also hope that in our future talks the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the officials will respond to the plea I am making for a sum of £500 million to go towards solving these problems in the city of Glasgow. The city of Glasgow itself is reported in today's Glasgow Herald as saying that it is looking for the same amount as that which I mentioned last week in an interview. I say that we need at least £50 million a year for 10 years. That is not an unreasonable sum, given the size of the problem.
I recognise that we have an extremely difficult financial situation facing the country at present, but I must say that, although I do not expect my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to meet me after this debate with £50 million as a first instalment to finance the plans that I am suggesting, I hope that, with pressure from hon. Members who represent Glasgow constituencies and others who support the ideals that I am expressing, and certainly with the support of Scottish Office Ministers, the Treasury will make a commitment in principle to allocate sums of money in order to start off the plan for urban deprivation units linking the various departments of the district council—not to replace the duties and activities of the district council, but to link them, bearing in mind what the leader of the council said about the problem being beyond the scope of that local authority. I should like it to be more of a partnership than simply replacing the excellent efforts which have been made. We have to accept that those efforts have not proved successful over the past few years.
I should also like to see additional officers appointed by the Department of

Health and Social Security. In these areas, often we find that people do not claim the maximum benefits which they could get in the form of supplementary benefit. Often it is due to ignorance, and I say that with all the kindness that I can muster. When I did a survey of the chronic sick and disabled in my own constituency of Queen's Park. I found that people in the poorer areas did not have the benefits that they could have had if they had been aware of all the rules and regulations about supplementary benefit.
I want to draw my hon. Friend's attention to a dilemma facing me in my constituency. It concerns a group of people calling themselves the Govanhill Housing Association. They have made the point to me that when the considerable sum of £19 million was allocated by the Government for environmental improvement, they were under the impression that that £19 million would go to municipal as well as to private house improvements. The district council has informed them, however, that the £19 million was purely for municipal improvements and not for the old tenements which I and many others of my hon. Friends have in our constituencies. These people have proved themselves a worthy association, and they are tackling plans for modernising not only houses but the back courts. Anyone who understands tenement life in Glasgow knows that many cases of ill health are caused by the condition of back courts because of bad drains and the lack of facilities for the disposal of litter. The housing association has insisted that in any house improvements in the way of hot water and bathrooms, the back courts should be a necessary part. If I send to the Minister the letter that I have received from the assocaiiton, I hope that he will give it full consideration.
Time does not permit me to make the case as fully as I should like in the interests of all those who suffer from this terrible social deprivation—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I remind the hon. Gentleman that this debate can go on until 10.30 p.m. If he feels that he has some other relevant information, there is no reason why he should confine himself to the customary 15 minutes.

Mr. McElhone: I am grateful for that advice, Mr. Deputy Speaker. However,


somewhat unusually for an Adjuornment debate, I am supported by a considerable number of my colleagues who may wish to make contributions of their own if the debate can be extended in the way that you suggest.
I ask the Minister also to give attention to the article in today's Glasgow Herald in which the council comes out and says that it could modernise between 2,000 and 3,000 houses a year. That is a considerable number of old tenements. We are long past the idea of simply putting a bulldozer to the older areas, demolishing them, and decanting people out to the peripheral areas. I am glad that that policy has changed and that we have now the housing action area programme, whereby houses are modernised and communities are kept in areas like Govanhill and other parts of Glasgow. It is pointed out that modernisation of 3,000 such homes a year would cost £20 million to £30 million a year, and that would be a considerable slice of the £50 million a year which is necessary if we are to change the image of the city of Glasgow and encourage people to go and work there.
My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State represents, in Glasgow, Provan, extensive areas of social deprivation. He has worked extremely hard for that area, both as a back bencher and as a Minister, and, to his great credit, he has also taken a keen interest, as housing Minister, in areas represented by other hon. Members. Despite the financial crisis facing the country, the attitude among my people is that perhaps a year or two years for any signs of action may he a year or two years too late, because they are looking for the justice which they think is Glasgow's due in the 1970s. If they are to be given justice, it must be early, because, all too often, justice delayed is justice denied.
In the case of old people in particular, I am extremely glad that the Scottish Office has at least seen fit to send a circular out urging local authorities to take some action on the provision of houses for the chronically sick and disabled.
Someone once said to me that I was always advancing the case for Glasgow. As a proud Glaswegian, I am prepared

to do that as far as I possibly can. But there is in Glasgow a source of deep regret to me as a former Glasgow city councillor and now as a Member of Parliament for Glasgow. It is that, despite Section 3 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, which states that local authorties "shall" provide housing for the chronically sick and disabled—not "may" provide it—Glasgow has not provided one house specifically built for the chronically sick and disabled.
I have raised countless Questions on this matter over the last three or four years. All too often it is the smaller authorities which have moved forward under Section 3. I hope that, apart from sending out a circular, my hon. Friend will say that Glasgow Corporation ought to be doing its best within its housing programme to fulfil its deep obligation to provide houses for the chronically sick and disabled.
A survey carried out in my constituency found that, apart from 771 people who were in need of assistance and not getting it under that excellent Act, at least 20 to 30 of them were acutely in need of the special type of housing that other local authorities have provided. In balancing the claims put forward by hon. Members, I hope that my hon. Friend will give emphasis to this aspect and not only to housing generally. We talk a great deal about social deprivation and the need also for recreational facilities, about improving gardens and the green spaces within such areas. But all too often one finds that the accent is on areas which do not really need them as badly as, say, Black-hill, if I may quote a case in the Minister's own constituency.
My predecessors were distinguished people, and the records show that they made speeches on much the same lines as the one I am now making. The condition of such areas is one of the reasons why we have lost so many of our bright and best young people to England, Canada, Australia and other parts of the Commonwealth. With the discovery of North Sea oil a new life is emerging in Scotland. Certainly this is encouraged with the job opportunities presented to us by the Government. We wish to keep our people. The figures show that not so many people are leaving our country this year, and that is very welcome.
However, if we are to go through a period of severe restraint—and I understand the reasons for it—if there is money available, and I expect that there always will be some, I hope that it will go to the city of Glasgow. I hope that hon. Members will not think that I am being selfish. I hope that they will accept that our areas of deprivation are much worse than anywhere else—as the Department of the Environment has said —and that £50 million per year should go to Glasgow, that the urban deprivation unit should move in to assist the Glasgow District Council, that the Department of Employment should be asked to provide extra staff and that the Department of Health and Social Security should also be asked to provide extra staff. I agree with those facts, because those measures are important and necessary. If they are carried out and a commitment is given, a new and long-awaited change of life will be provided for the citizens of Glasgow.

9.31 p.m.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: All hon. Members who represent Glasgow constituencies, and indeed other Scottish Members will be grateful to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Queen's Park (Mr. McElhone) for raising this subject and also to the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) and his hon. Friends, who by winning the Division gave us extra time for this important debate. I was anxious to take part in the debate, but I was expecting to have to wait until three, four or five o'clock in the morning before the hon. Member for Queen's Park got on his feet.
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right in saying that urban deprivation is normally associated with the city of Glasgow. He made an extremely good speech but it was unfortunate that at the beginning he tried in some way to relate the problems to the Tory Party and the Scottish National Party. Having been a councillor in the city of Glasgow, my own recollection is that over the past 50 years the Progressive Party has been in power for approximately two years and for the rest of the time the Labour Party has been in control.

Mr. Alexander Wilson: I should like to put the record straight. The majority of the time was spent under a Tory Government. It was in the main

through grants from the central Government that the local authority was able to get on with its housing project.

Mr. Taylor: There have been Conservative Governments that have done their best to help Glasgow and its problems. However, if we are to spend our time deciding whether Conservative councils, Progressive councils or Conservative Governments are to blame we shall not get far. The problems of Glasgow have remained, irrespective of who has been in power at George Square or Westminster. Obviously something needs to be done.
First, we must try to establish just how real the urban deprivation is. We must remember that much of the present controversy has arisen from a report published by the Department of the Environment based on figures published in the 1971 census. All Glasgow Members will be aware that a great deal has been done since 1971.
Second, we must bear in mind that much of the publicity about Glasgow's housing is entirely wrong, mischievous and misleading. Nothing annoys me more than to see on television a programme about a family living in appalling housing conditions. When this is checked out one often finds either that the house concerned has been cleared by the local authority and people have then moved in or that someone who had a satisfactory municipal house has done a moonlight flit and moved into the condemned property. The media could help considerably if, when displaying some of the alleged atrocious housing problems in Glasgow, they gave the whole story and not just half of it.
Third, despite its problems Glasgow has some unique and fundamental assets with its open space, a number of parks and the accessibility of the countryside and the coast. It is within our knowledge that those who have come to live in the city of Glasgow have been enormously surprised by some of Glasgow's unique assets concerning culture and education. However, there is an enormous problem and we must address ourselves to what is wrong and what needs to be done.
The first thing, about which I feel passionately, is that money alone will not solve Glasgow's problems. It is our


job, as Members of Parliament representing the city, to make sure that its needs are taken into account by the Government when assessing their spending priorities. However, it would be entirely wrong to give the impression that if money were made available Glasgow's problems would be solved. In addition, we need a change of policy in housing and social engineering. Money alone will not solve Glasgow's problems. An enormous amount has already been spent by the local council and by Governments of both parties. Yet, despite that, Glasgow still has a massive problem.
I am sure that the hon. Member for Queen's Park will join me in saying that it is rather a slap in the face for the city of Glasgow that, instead of giving extra cash, the Government have introduced a new rate system of reallocation within the regions, which will mean that ratepayers in Glasgow will pay about 9p in the pound more than they would otherwise have had to pay.

Mr. McElhone: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman wants to be fair. Therefore, he should put on record that this Government gave the biggest rate support grant for any year and that this helped the Glasgow district authority as well as the regions.

Mr. Taylor: Yes. I was trying not to be controversial. The hon. Gentleman is right that, for the whole of Scotland, we had an all-time record grant from the Government. On the other hand, he will be aware that the reallocation scheme within the regions ensures that, because Glasgow has always had high rates, they will be particularly high in the current financial year.
One thing which should be said straight away, which is shown by the evidence, is that although Glasgow has a bad housing problem there is not an enormous physical shortage of houses. I think the Minister will agree from his constituency experience that if a homeless couple were to move into Glasgow, they could soon be allocated a post-war house, which would have cost a great deal to build. It might take weeks, but in no case would it be more than six months for someone moving into the city to get a corporation house. To that extent, although we have a substantial waiting list, there is

not an enormous physical shortage of houses in Glasgow.
I believe that there are three problems which must be faced. The first concerns our slums. There are fewer slums in Glasgow than in the past. That is because of the massive clearance programme. One of our greatest disappointments in the previous Government was that, whereas we put enormous emphasis on improvement grants designed to ensure that Glasgow tenements would be improved, we found the money being spent on the improvement of houses in other parts of the country and very little in the city of Glasgow. People were putting in new dormer windows and adding extensions to houses in the Highlands and so on, but not a great deal was being spent on improving Glasgow's tenements.
I think that in any reassessment of the improvement grant scheme which, I hope, will come from the Housing (Scotland) Act 1974 and the setting up of housing action areas, we should ensure that a great deal of the money available for housing improvement is spent on tenement property in the city of Glasgow and other cities similarly affected.
Recently the Minister announced that there would be a reduction of about £10 million in anticipated spending on housing. He explained that there would be no reduction in housing subsidies but that the Government hoped to recoup the £10 million by an increase in municipal rents throughout Scotland. Since that time a large number of authorities, including the Glasgow District Council, have effectively said to the Minister that they will not increase their rents. To that extent, I wonder whether the Minister could give us some guidance about where the £10 million will come from? What worries me is that it might come off the improvement grants. I hope that the Minister will give us a clear assurance that, if the money is not to be raised by increased rents because of the new freedom given to local authorities since our Housing (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Act was repealed, it will not come off the improvement grant programme.
The second great problem concerns private rented accommodation. The Minister will be aware that Glasgow is rather unique in that traditionally it has had a substantial number of private rented


homes. Unfortunately, all the evidence is that private homes coming on to the market are not being made available for letting, and the situation on the furnished accommodation side has become appalling. Since the Act of last year furnished lettings have moved away from the market.
What is the Minister's attitude to the private rented sector? At one time the Labour Party indicated in policy statements its hope that private rented property would be taken over by the Government or by local authorities, but we now have the situation that the municipalisation programme has been abandoned—understandably so—because of the financial problems facing the country. In these circumstances, the Minister has an obligation to tell us what his policy is towards the private rented sector.
There is a great deal of urban deprivation in Glasgow, and the problem will become more serious unless there is a change of policy in the giant schemes that were carried out in the City of Glasgow in the rush for post-war housing. There were three giant schemes—Easterhouse, Drumchapel and Castlemilk—and a number of other smaller schemes were undertaken at about that time. The big schemes were starved of amenities and were far too large to foster a real community spirit, and they have given rise to many problems since then. It is in the nature of urban deprivation that where there is a lack of amenities there are schools with an appalling teacher shortage, which means that children who start disadvantaged face even greater problems.
What can be done in this situation? I represent one of the great schemes, Castlemilk, and I think the Minister will agree that we are winning the battle there. The best indication of this is to be found in the demand for houses in the various schemes. When I first became the Member for the area which includes Castlemilk, people could get a house there after wait-for a few months—perhaps six months at most. It now appears from the correspondence that I have had with the housing manager that someone who wants a house in this area has to wait for about two years. This is a remarkable change and an encouraging one. It may be that this is due to the representation in Par-

liament which the people there enjoy. I should not wish to put that forward as the reason, but I think the Minister will accept that there has been a change in the situation.
What worries me is not so much the fact that there are problems but that the better schemes appear to be getting better and the worst schemes appear to be getting even worse. This is where one can come up against desperate problems of urban deprivation. It is the kind of problem that one meets in American cities, where the nice areas become nicer and the bad areas become worse. That is why we must do something urgently to deal with the problems that are being met.
The answer is not merely to provide more money. I should like to put forward a number of specific suggestions, none of which would cost a great deal of money. There is a desperate need to inject owner-occupation into our council housing schemes, particularly in schemes with few amenities. The Tory Party has always advocated a policy of selling council houses as of right to every council tenant. My fear is that if that policy were to be enforced without any restrictions in Glasgow, houses would be sold in Merrylee, Knightswood and Mosspark—those pleasant and desirable areas where there are few if any social problems—and not in the other municipalised areas which are different in composition and standards. There must be an injection of of owner-occupation in the most difficult schemes.
If there is no great demand, how does one manufacture it? Every local authority tenant, particularly in difficult areas, should be sent a circular letter saying, what the monthly charge would be if he bought his existing home on mortgage—on the basis of market value less, say, about 25 per cent. in areas like Knights-wood the price would be high. An objective valuation in some schemes might come up with a price of £750, £1,000 or £1,500. All houses which were empty for two or three months, and not because of maintenance work, should be offered for sale by the local authority, which should have a statutory obligation to do so.
If we use all means to inject owner-occupation by offering houses at a low


price reflecting present market value, we should do a real service to these areas. The people concerned would know that the price they would get for the house would determine the general norms of the community, and they would make a constructive contribution. This would also achieve a better social mix, which is important in education as well as housing.
More police are needed. One of the consistent and recurrent complaints is that, although the police try to cover the whole area, there are not enough of them. There are not enough men on the beat. Instead, there are Panda cars. We know that there is a manpower shortage, but if the Minister discussed greater police supervision in difficult areas with the Strathclyde Police Authority, he would do Glasgow a service.
Third, in schemes with many social problems, as in the private rented sector, there is a need for a further extension of the welcome direct payment of rent from long-term supplementary benefit recipients. Following a meeting which I and the Castlemilk Amenities Interest Group and other groups have had with the Chairman of the Supplementary Benefits Commission, the number of families whose rent is paid direct from these benefits has been increased. It is a great worry when there are so many evictions because of non-payment of rent.
Fourth, public transport should be reglamourised and improved. We forget that many people in the peripheral schemes depend entirely on public transport. Having a car, I often forget this myself. If there is a case for additional Government funds, it is to ensure that the public transport services in areas where many people depend on them are improved.
Fifth, there should be a substantial improvement in maintenance services in council areas. Having met the manager, I know that he has substantial problems, but a considerable improvement would arise from regular liaison among those who operate building departments throughout Scotland to consider how administration could be improved and the tenants given a better idea of what work was being done and the reason for any delay.
Sixth, more discipline is needed. Most of us will accept, not just because we represent the areas, that many of the problems in these schemes come from a small minority of anti-social tenants who, for good reasons or for bad reasons, make life hell for their neighbours. There is need for more discipline to be exercised by housing management departments.

Dr. Jeremy Bray: Is not part of the difficulty that there is sometimes a policy of putting problem families all together in one area rather than spreading them about in communities that can give greater support to problem families?

Mr. Taylor: The hon. Gentleman raises a very important point. However, every area that I know of in the West of Scotland which has made strenuous attempts to have a mixed policy and to say "We are not going to ghetto-ise problem families", as I know Glasgow tried some years ago, found that self-segration has taken place. If two or three rowdy families move into a street, other families try to move out. Even in the big schemes, streets become known as rough streets or nice streets. No matter how hard one tries, without a measure of discipline self-segregation takes place. The Minister will know this from his constituency experience, as I know it from mine.
If we want to try to build up morale and community spirit, local authorities should be encouraged by circular to ensure that young homeless families who have lived in an area all their lives and want a house there are accorded preferential treatment. If at Easterhouse young homeless families who are staying with their folks could be given a house in the area where they have lived and been educated, this could do much more for the area than if families from condemned buildings elsewhere are moved in. I therefore hope that the Minister will discuss with Glasgow and other cities the possibility of such a scheme of allocation.
Second last, I hope that the Minister will give serious consideration to the possibility of the consumer advice centres which are being set up throughout the country being concentrated and located within our major housing schemes. It worries me that the consumer advice centres which are being set up are often in


areas which do not have a substantial number of social problems. If there is a shortage of cash for these centres, they could do far more good in council schemes where there is a substantial number of people who are used to being kicked around, who do not know where to go for advice, and who as a general rule do not have access to telephones.
There is a splendid case for having an advice centre within each large housing scheme in Scotland. Then there would not be just the housing authority represented but the electricity board, the gas board and even the income tax inspector would be in a position to give advice to people who tend to be kicked around by our bureaucratic machinery.
Lastly, I hope that I have not spoken for too long and that what I have said has been constructive. I hope that the Minister will bear this in mind and also remember that very few of the things that I have suggested would cost money.
The hon. Member for Queen's Park has rendered an excellent service in pointing out the needs of the city and our constant need for more finance. I hope that the Minister will take the message from me that the mere provision of finance without a change of policy will not solve the problem of urban deprivation in Glasgow.

9.54 p.m.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: In 13 years I have never before, Mr. Deputy Speaker, presumed to have the temerity to speak on the subject of the housing of your city. My excuse for doing so is partly that I, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie), represent half of Livingston. As is known to you, three-quarters of the population of Livingston are incomers from your city. This raises a question which is becoming more and more urgent—that is, the rail links.
Like the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Taylor), I hope to be constructive and to put forward seven points. First, could the Scottish Office once again resume discussions with the Department of the Environment and, indeed, the Lothian and Strathclyde regional councils to see whether it would not be sensible, now that population patterns have changed, to resurrect a passenger service—Airdrie,

Bathgate, Livingston, Edinburgh? There is a good deal of indication that on the easterly side of this line it would be nearing profit. I would like to assure my hon. Friends after a good deal of discussion with people in Livingston that, especially at weekends, there would be a very considerable traffic going in a westerly direction from Livingston to Airdrie so that particularly women could catch the Airdrie blue trains to a point of destination in Glasgow. In Livingston there is a real problem of women being cut off from their families. Therefore, both ways there would be a considerable advantage in going back and re-examining the rail link.
I am sure that with buses and petrol becoming more expensive, whereas 10 or 15 years ago it may have made good sense to close this line, equally it would now make sense on a cost basis to consider opening it up, and it might even be a sensible commercial decision for British Rail. It would be a great help to those who come from Glasgow to Livingston. I ask that this suggestion should be considered in depth now that the population pattern has changed so dramatically with the growth of Livingston.
As a council member of the National Trust, I have seen at first hand the success of its small houses scheme, particularly in the county of Fife. I suppose that to a non-Glaswegian it is always striking how beautiful the city is. Often one thinks that there are more gems of architecture in Glasgow than in Edinburgh—I really mean that—and it would be tragic if some of those houses which are in marginally good condition were not saved. Therefore, one thinks in terms of a revolving fund.
In the houses which are being pulled down there are a great number of valuable building materials. I have to confess that two years ago, for my personal purposes I got two lorry loads of the most beautiful cut Caithness stone from the paving stones in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Hugh D. Brown): I hope my hon. Friend paid for it.

Mr. Dalyell: I paid not a ha'penny for it, other than for transport from the Glasgow city boundary to where I live. Otherwise it would have gone to the Glasgow


city rubbish dump. That is why I got it free. I will not say that it was a minor scandal, because it suited me. The stone was used for a good purpose. These building materials, some of which are deposited in rubbish dumps, could be used for much better purposes. Perhaps I was lucky, but it does not alter the principle of the thing.
I was greatly impressed to visit, again in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Queen's Park (Mr. McElhone), the community industry training scheme. All of us who have seen this at first hand know its possibilities. May I express the hope that even when the public sector borrowing requirement necessities are as we all know they are, there will not be a cutback in the help to community industry. I hope that community industry can be enabled to enlarge its training in two particular sectors, to one of which the hon. Member for Cathcart referred, namely, those who are skilled in maintenance of elderly buildings. Those who can cope with the labyrinthine byzantine plumbing of some of the older buildings are fewer and fewer, and there is an argument for training in the maintenance of old property. I couple with this training in the often forgotten art of masonry. I hope there will not be any cutback in community industry.
The next issue I wish to raise is rather general. It extends beyond Glasgow. Some of us are horrified at the prospect that there may be a cutback in the number of teachers employed and in teacher training. Speaking for many of my colleagues, if there are to be cutbacks in the education budget let it be in new building rather than in the number of teachers employed, because oversize classes are a form of deprivation. In fact, it is often the most serious form of deprivation of all. I say to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary—

It being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. James Hamilton.]

Mr. Dalyell: —that, in the value judgment they will be called on to make, the

provision of teachers will have a high-powered effect.
Fifthly, I do not want to mislead my colleagues but some of us have recently seen some impressive new housing projects in Rouen, France, and in some other French industrial cities. Perhaps we can learn from this that housing provision can include adequate sports facilities and a proper sports set-up. I am not talking about creating Olympic champions for the future or anything of that kind, but from the point of view of the preservation of property the provision of proper sports facilities—what is being done in West Lothian, for example —is sensible along with massive new housing. Could not greater priority be given not only to Glasgow but to the whole of Scotland?
I should like to mention a West Lothian problem. I am appalled that the combined wisdom of the Midlothian Council and the West Lothian District Council—the region and the district—has created a situation in which the swimming pool at Fauldhouse has now been in working order and full of water for six weeks. Those councils cannot come to an amicable agreement about who is to pay the running costs. The pupils of Fauldhouse are now on holiday. If I know the good people of Fauldhouse, unless a decision is made that swimming pool will be broken into before long, because if those people see water and a brand-new swimming pool somehow they will get their swim, especially in this hot weather when the kids are on holiday. It is about time—I would not normally raise this matter in the House of Commons—that the Scottish Office made some inquiries as to how this situation has come about.
The hon. Member for Cathcart mentioned the police. I am perfectly aware that I am on delicate grounds here. I have already raised with the Home Office —I did not get very far with it—the argument for bringing in a system whereby the blood groups of convicted criminals are recorded in a data bank. This arises in my case not from the dramatic events connected with Lord Lucan, but from a visit a month previously by the Forensic Science Laboratory of the Metropolitan Police at Lambeth. Dr. Margaret Pereira and Dr. Culliforth persuaded us that there are tremendous


savings—and this is the point I wish to bring to the attention of my hon. Friends —in terms of police time if blood that is left—and it is often a matter of petty crime rather than dramatic crime—can be identified.
In the past five years there have been various systems whereby the authorities can narrow down a minuscule piece of dried blood to one group in, perhaps, 500, or, in the less common types, to one in 3,000. My hon. Friend will appreciate that the basic issue is in the saving of police time. If such a system were allowed, many suspects could be eliminated. It is self-evident to my hon. Friends that the amount of detective time that would be saved would be considerable. This may sound rather like 1984 but those who argue in relation to 1984 and those who use the civil liberties argument have to admit that we already have in the system a whole data bank of fingerprints. What is the difference between taking data about blood samples of a convicted criminal and taking fingerprints? I do not think that there is much qualitative difference, other than the technical assaults involved. I realise that the puncturing of skin, even to get a blood sample, is an assault.
I take up a point mentioned by the hon. Member for Cathcart. When talking about deprivation we are talking partly about crime. The House of Commons should not frustrate the police in any way by preventing them from using the benefits of modern science. I am saying nothing new when I say that both the Chief Constable of the Lothians and the Chief Constable of the Central Region have said that they would be in favour of this kind of help.
Therefore, I put it gently in these terms. The Scottish Office should give proper consideration to the question whether it would help the police if Parliament allowed them to take blood samples. I do not see why we are bound to follow the reply I was given to a recent Parliamentary Question by my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Home Office, nor do I think that the Home Secretary is infallible on this matter. I hope that there will be a separate look at the question by the Secretary of State and his colleagues, and by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, who I think has responsibility in these matters, and after

due consideration we might ask ourselves whether there is not a case for the law of Scotland to be changed to allow blood samples to be taken from convicted criminals. I think that this would help in the battle against crime.
There are others who wish to speak in the debate. I thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for my opportunity.

10.6 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Hugh D. Brown): We are all indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Queen's Park (Mr. McElhone) for initiating the debate. We have had the good fortune of having slightly longer to debate the subject, which if I may remind hon. Members was urban deprivation in Clydeside. I know that there is a link between crime and the problem we are discussing, but the very narrow point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell)—

Mr. Dalyell: My hon. Friend would have saved himself another Adjournment debate.

Mr. Brown: I would not have to answer that Adjournment debate. However, my hon. Friend my fellow Under-Secretary has certainly noted the point. No doubt we shall hear more about the matter in the usual charming and brief manner of my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian.
I start by taking up one or two points that were raised by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Taylor). I always find that when he is at his most charming, cool and rational—or as rational as he can be—he is at his most dangerous. He finished his speech by leaving the impression that he was not asking for the expenditure of any more money. Perhaps he does not remember everything he said, but I have noted about half a dozen different things, all of which would include increased public expenditure.
The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. He and his party are urging cuts in public expenditure, but he comes along as if some of the matters he raises would not involve this—including more police and the increases in housing expenditure he was advocating. He cannot have that while urging upon the


Government that there should be reductions in public expenditure.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: In fairness, I think I said that only a few of the things I suggested would involve increased spending, and then very little. The Minister should bear in mind, when talking of priorities, that the Government were not forced last Wednesday to move the Second Reading of a Bill extending State ownership of industry in Scotland and costing £300 million.

Mr. Brown: Included in that is also provision for the very problems we are discussing. The hon. Gentleman should at least recognise that.
I make that point only in passing, however, because I basically agreed with the hon. Gentleman when he said that money alone will not solve the problems we are discussing. Perhaps if more attention—not merely because of the difficult economic climate in which we are operating—could be paid to what can be done, and not merely because it does not cost money, and if more effort could be made in housing schemes, particularly some of those we all know fairly well, which does not cost money, and more effort could be put into encouraging local people to take a greater interest in their own affairs and accept more responsibility for them, I would agree with the hon. Gentleman all the way in that kind of approach.
I am sure that the hon. Member for Cathcart will not expect me to deal with all the matters he raised, but I wish to comment on what he said about the misuse of improvement grants. In the 1974 Act we have provided for better use of the money through housing action areas, we have limited the range of housing which can attract grant by using the rateable value of £100, and there are no grants for second homes. Those are three ways in which we have made the application of money for improvement grants much more discriminating, directing it to the properties which show the greatest need. This is something which we have done in a constructive approach to the use of what money is available, adopting better methods than were adopted by the previous Government.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: We had made provision for that.

Mr. Brown: We have made changes to make that provision better.
The argument about municipalisation is a sterile argument. There is no great demand. It is not seen as a solution to the problems in Glasgow which we are discussing. No one is advocating it, and no one believes it to be a solution. Nevertheless it has to be recognised that there has been a substantial and permanent decline in the amount of private rented accommodation available. This is not due to the pursuit of ideological policies by anyone; it is just that the sheer physical deterioration of privately-owned and rented property means that there is a decreasing amount available.
The hon. Member for Cathcart knows that in the Housing Rents and Subsidies (Scotland) Act 1975 there are provisions which go some way to recognise that the private sector has a contribution to make in providing accommodation at reasonable rents, and he knows also of the restrictions which we have put on the increases which may be included there. I have no need to apologise, therefore, on that score. We are not pursuing ideological policies which are working against any contribution towards the solution of the problems of so-called deprived areas.
Before coming to my detailed reply to what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Queen's Park, may I add a word to my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian? I have enough on my plate already without accepting responsibilities for rail links, gems of architecture, community industry or cutbacks in teacher supply. If he is advocating that I should visit France to look at some of the experiments there, I am certainly willing to do that, but as regards swimming bath in Fauldhouse I have no ministerial responsibility whatever. However, I assure my hon. Friend that the matters which he raised—I acknowledge that they are serious and I am not being flippant, especially with regard to community industry and rail links—will be conveyed to the attention of my right hon. or hon. Friends who have responsibility for them.
I welcome the initiative of my hon. Friend the Member for Queen's Park in raising this debate. I am sure that he has direct links with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I shall be delighted


if he can extract what he is seeking from the Chancellor. I regard it in no way as my job to interfere with such personal links as he may have. I assure my hon. Friend, however, that a substantial amount of money is going into Glasgow at present. As I say, it would be wrong to leave the impression that money alone would solve the problems of urban deprivation, but it is none the less an important element.
My hon. Friend referred to various matters outwith my responsibility—increased staff in the Department of Employment and Department of Health and Social Security local offices—and the very fair comments which he made will be conveyed, I assure him, to the proper quarter.
I have no knowledge of the particular problem in Govanhill which my hon. Friend the Member for Queen's Park raised, but I gather he is writing to me about it and I shall look at the matter with great interest. I know the concern he has on this subject and I welcome the debate. It is wise to remind the House that the debate is about urban deprivation on Clydeside and not just about Glasgow. It would be a mistake if we allowed the impression to go out from this House that all the problems are in Glasgow or that Glasgow has nothing but problems. I am sure that this is not the intention of anyone here.
The recent report confirmed and highlighted some of the problems which have been staring central and local government in the face for years. None of us can be complacent. I am not trying to score party points, but I do not recall any special concern being shown by the previous Conservative Government, and in the short period that the Conservatives or Progressives were in control in Glasgow I do not recall them diverting additional resources into areas of greatest need. No one here has any right to try to score party points.
As there are no hon. Members from the Scottish National Party present at the moment, I have to say in their absence that they were particularly noted for their incompetence as members of the corporation, whatever area they represented, and they did not advocate policies of greater discrimination.

Mr. Dennis Canavan: Will my hon. Friend take the opportunity of reminding the House and the people of Scotland that the Scottish National Party Members, who have been making many silly, irresponsible and unconstructive remarks on this very serious subject of urban deprivation, have not made a single constructive contribution in this debate and their bench is now empty? The attendance record of the SNP in the House is very poor, but they reached a nadir of ignominy in the recent proceedings in the Community Land Bill Standing Committee when they could not even produce one hon. Member—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The question of deprivation on Clydeside does not cover the absence of anyone here, which the people of Clydeside might welcome rather than feel that they have been deprived in any way.

Mr. Brown: Sooner or later, and I hope sooner, the people of Scotland will recognise that the Scottish National Party Members contribute nothing to serious discussions in the House. One of the things that perturbs me locally is that they are adept, in the kind of areas about which we are concerned, at giving the impression that there are instant solutions to some of these deep-rooted problems. In my own area, one would almost get the impression that the gangs would declare peace overnight if self-determination for Scotland was approved today. People know how absurd this is.
Since the 1971 Census, on which the Department of the Environment report is based, there has been no great change in the broad pattern of deprivation but there have been some significant changes. For example, the Strathclyde Region's male unemployment rate improved from 8·9 per cent. in June 1971 to 7 per cent. in June 1975. This was a period during which the British rate increased from 4·2 per cent. to 4·8 per cent. I am not trying to suggest that because the relative position has improved we are not still facing a serious unemployment situation and there is no consolation in these figures for anyone who is one of the statistics.
Also, since 1971 over 30,000 substandard tenement houses in Glasgow have been cleared. Indeed, in our very proper concern for the deprived it is


important to keep the right perspective. Over the years, massive efforts have gone into redressing these problems. Much has been done. Glasgow is a good city to live in, and we all aim to make it even better. Strathclyde is a region of magnificent amenity and of growing industrial and commercial potential.
To say that is not to be complacent. I think that the psychological approach to convincing people that things can be better is important, especially since at the end of the day we shall have to rely on people themselves. It is wrong always to suggest that things are grim, bleak and depressing and that we are not making progress. I am not therefore being complacent, but we have to get the balance right. There are far too many remaining areas of blight, and we must concentrate on these. In doing so we must recognise that they are of very different kinds requiring different approaches and different treatments. The problems of Queen's Park are entirely different from the problems of Govan or Kelvingrove or some of the areas where there is older slum property. Therefore, this generalisation that parts of Glasgow are not good places to live in is totally misleading.
We are not looking for the same kind of policies without looking very carefully into the local needs of each area, but we require the participation of the people together with the district, the region and, obviously, the Scottish Office. Piecemeal and unco-ordinated schemes can prove disastrously wasteful and counter-productive. If they do not work, they can leave bitterness, indifference or in some cases even increased cynicism behind them.
The dispersal of deprived tenants from inner-area slums to new and old council estates does not itself solve the problems. In some cases it makes them worse. All this adds to the complexity of the problems that have to be tackled. It is for these reasons that I query the assumption of my hon. Friend the Member for Queen's Park that the answer to the problems of Glasgow and Clydeside can be solved simply by the injection of new money.

Mr. McElhone: I must put it on the record that I did not imply that money

was a panacea for this problem. The majority of the housing estates in Glasgow are a credit to the city. I said that there were reservoirs of socially deprived people in places like Govan. Will my hon. Friend seriously consider bringing in the urban renewal unit, which, with some form of estate management by the council tenants themselves, would go a long way to helping this problem?

Mr. Brown: I was going to add that I did not think my hon. Friend had said it was simply a matter of money. I can assure him that the urban renewal unit in the Scottish Office will be involved in Glasgow, although the details of housing management will still be a matter for the district authorities—although I hope that we may debate this issue in more detail on Thursday.

Mr. McElhone: I want the urban renewal unit to be used not simply to tackle housing problems but to act as a co-ordinator of the various departments which are already active in these areas but not working together effectively.

Mr. Brown: That goes without saying. The unit is a co-ordinating unit designed to bring together the various departments in the Scottish Office which are linked with this problem. When I say that it will be concentrating a major part of its efforts in Glasgow, I mean that it will be providing whatever know-how it has in the co-ordination that is required at district level.
I wish to mention the contribution that will also be made by the Scottish Development Agency, which was debated last week. That will mean that additional money can be available. On top of that, the Scottish Special Housing Association is embarking on a building programme to assist local authorities which still have major slum clearance problems. Over the next three years the largest single number of houses—no fewer than 1,500—will go to Glasgow, and a further 1,000 are intended for the general area. That is a not inconsiderable contribution to be made by the Government at no cost to the ratepayers. I hope that that will be put on the balance sheet in favour of the Government's directing its efforts to these problems.
We recognise that there are problems with reorganisation. Obviously, that


matter requires a certain approach. I hope that the new districts will make full use of the powers given them in the Housing (Scotland) Act 1974 to declare housing action areas. A circular about this has been issued today. I also hope that they will make available to owners the generous grants that are available to bring older houses up to standard. Bad housing conditions are only one aspect of deprivation, but it is important to get people's housing right if we are to have any hope of going on to solve their wider social problems.
My hon. Friend referred to the problems that might arise in the dispersal of civil servants because of the publicity about Glasgow. All of us who had anything to do with the Savings Bank coming to Glasgow—and many efforts were made by many people—recognise that this is a problem. But my hon. Friend was wrong to give the impression that the Civil Service unions were against the transfer. They are arguing about the terms, about whether there should be compulsory transfers or whether they should be by negotiation. One of the main associations is now on record as supporting the dispersal policy, something which did not happen over the Savings Bank.
These are important initiatives that the Government have taken. I am sure that the dispersal policy will be successful and will make a substantial contribution to the general economic wellbeing of the area.
We have also encouraged the setting up of a community development project at Ferguslie Park, Paisley, and one in Motherwell. The Motherwell district and the Strathclyde Region have agreed to carry on with the experiments in Motherwell. I do not think that research is all that is needed.

Dr. Bray: Will my hon. Friend confirm that no cuts have been made in the programme?

Mr. Brown: There are no cuts. This is only a modest research programe. The district and the region have agreed to carry on the initial study, which is for a period of about one year, leading to the formulation of a comprehensive set of proposals for the regeneration of the area concerned.
My right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the Minister of State had discussions with some members of the Strathclyde Regional Council last Friday, and some of us are meeting the Lord Provost of Glasgow this week as local Members. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I will be meeting the Glasgow district next week in a more formal gathering.
I assure my hon. Friend that all the points he raised will be taken into account. We are aware of the difficulty in the short term of finding the financial resources for the existing programmes and for some of the ideas that my hon. Friend advocated. But that does not need to limit our determination to plan and execute effective action, and to do so quickly.
Above all we need ideas, enthusiasm and leadership aimed at securing the cooperation of the people, without whose support nothing concrete will be achieved. It is up to us to give that leadership and inspiration. I think that part of that contribution has been made by my hon. Friend the Member for Queen's Park in initiating this debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Ten o'clock.